Illinois teachers unions lobby for guaranteed ‘excellent’ evaluations during ‘gubernatorial disaster’

Keith Wheeler (R-North Aurora) is JCAR Co-Chairman)

By Prairie State Wire reports

Dec 14, 2020

A resolution that would grant preferential treatment to tenured teachers is being considered by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) at its Tuesday, Dec. 15 meeting.

Members of the bi-partisan committee will vote on an amendment that would change teacher evaluation and remediation plans during a gubernatorial emergency.

It is clear the amendment was written to allow not only for the suspension of teachers evaluations and remediation, but the logging of default assessments for teachers regardless of actual performance.

Illinois uses four performance categories: excellent, proficient, needs improvement or unsatisfactory.

The proposed rule change would automatically provide “contractual continued service”, or tenured, teachers with the highest possible assessment score of "excellent" regardless of performance. Inexplicably, teachers not in contractual continued service, or non-tenured teachers, would only result a “proficient” mark on their assessment.

“Any teacher in contractual continued service who received an "Excellent" on his or her most recent evaluation, and whose performance evaluation is not conducted when the evaluation is supposed to be conducted, will not default to the rating of "Proficient" and will instead default to a rating of ‘Excellent’,” the proposed text reads. “Any teacher not in contractual continued service will default to the rating of Proficient’.”

Ordinarily teachers are evaluated every learning cycle and is rated on each. In serve cases teachers are placed in remediation programs.

"A teacher can have up to three of these learning cycles for which the teacher receives a needs improvement rating before the teacher receives an unsatisfactory rating and is enrolled in a 90-day remediation plan," Illinois State Board of Education materials read.

In this case, the evaluation cannot be completed and teacher remediation plans would also be placed on indefinite hold.

‘If the Governor has declared a disaster due to a public health emergency pursuant to Section 7 of the IEMA Act that suspends in-person instruction, the timelines connected to the commencement and completion of any remediation plan are waived,” the proposed amendment reads.

The meeting will be at 11:30 a.m. at the Stratton Office Building in Room C-1.

JCAR is a bipartisan legislative oversight committee that oversees state agency administrative rules.

Committee members include: