Out of 124 Long Island school districts to submit plans for a new system of evaluating teachers required by the state, Oysterponds Elementary School is the only district yet to be approved in Albany, according to a Newsday report.
Newsday reported that 123 out of 124 districts got the green light as of 7 p.m. on Thursday on state-mandated plans for tougher teacher evaluations in a system known as Annual Professional Performance Review, or APPR, where student performance and standardized testing will determine 40 percent of teachers’ ratings.
School districts and teachers unions had until midnight on Thursday to comply. The state mandate includes imposition of state-aid penalties on districts that miss the deadline.
Oysterponds Superintendent Richard Malone said that though negotiations between the school board and the teachers’ union were “not moving along” since Malone first proposed the APPR plans in December, he said he did get the approval of the teachers’ union at around 4 p.m. on Thursday, worked on revisions on the plan through the evening and filed with the state at about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday.
“It was well before the midnight deadline,” Malone told Patch Friday morning. “They had me do some final corrections, I sent it right back to them and they complimented me on the plan. So we did file on time.”
With this year's enrollment of 71 students in pre-K through sixth grade, Oysterponds employs 18 teachers.
Read the full Newsday article here.
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