Building
a teacher
professional
growth system
THE (NOT SO FAST OR
STRAIGHT) LINE TO
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Robla SD is on a journey
to innovate an educator
evaluation system that
embraces accountability
and continuous
improvement, redefining
how instructional leaders
think about professional
growth and how they
support that growth.
38
Leadership
Resourcing Excellence in Edu-
cation (REEd), an educational intermediary
housed in the UC Davis School of Educa-
tion, approached Robla School District
in 2015 with a request to participate in a
federal Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ )
grant to help demonstrate that teacher eval-
uation could be used to empower teachers
and help them grow professionally.
Superintendent Ruben Reyes took the re-
quest to his teachers union and administra-
tive team and both parties agreed to serve as
a pilot district. Among the appealing parts
of the request was the opportunity to build
a “home-grown” model, as that is how this
K-6 northern Sacramento urban district
likes to operate. Robla serves approximately
2,500 students, 43 percent of whom are
English learners and 92 percent are desig-
nated for free or reduce-priced meals.
Now, three years later, Robla is fully com-
mitted to the creation of a formal practitio-
ner review process that is moving the district
closer to its emerging vision of educator ef-
fectiveness.
By way of background, the Stull Act,
originally passed in 1971, is the major Cali-
fornia state legislation governing teacher
evaluation. For good or bad – depending on
one’s perspective – that law has remained es-
sentially unchanged, as have the evaluation
systems put into place by individual districts
in response.
The 2002 re-authorization of the Elemen-
tary and Secondary Education Act as No
Child Left Behind, with its strong focus on
accountability, contributed to a nationwide
interest in re-thinking what it means to be
an effective teacher and the value of evalua-
tion in teacher improvement efforts.
California’s engagement in the renewed
conversations contributed to the develop-
ment of the California Teachers Association
Teacher Evaluation Framework (2012) and
introduced language to amend the 1971 Ed-
ucation Code in Senate Bill 499 introduced
in 2015. Ultimately, the EdCode was not
amended and the state elected to continue
its pursuit of a policy path driven by local-
control.
The ITQ grant funding the work in Robla
rolled out through the California Depart-
By Susan O’Hara, Joanne Bookmyer,
Robin Martin, Renee Newton and
Ruben Reyes