For all you public school teachers out there...

[Val1]

My wife teaches French and English as a Second Language. Taught for years, but new to this school district, so she's treated just like a first year teacher. She's supposed to have been observed four times by February 15th, which is tomorrow, and she's only been observed three times. This time it's supposed to be by her principal. He was going to come into to her second period class, but something came up and he missed. This afternoon my wife was covering for an English teacher and that's when she got observed(!). It's not her lesson plan, they're not her kids, and it's not even her area of certification (though she's taught English before). And yet, that's part of her record now. Amazing. I almost want to send this into Dilbert...

[pething101]

That is bogus. I would contact my NEA rep. I am not a union fan but perhaps this is an occasion for them.

[djwalker]

Typical.

[Ringo]

my wife's a teacher and has had similar stuff. they say they'll observe on a certain date, cancel without saying anything and then just appear at a random time in the future.
frustrating as all heck.

[Mglnbea]

My wife teaches French and English as a Second Language. Taught for years, but new to this school district, so she's treated just like a first year teacher. She's supposed to have been observed four times by February 15th, which is tomorrow, and she's only been observed three times. This time it's supposed to be by her principal. He was going to come into to her second period class, but something came up and he missed. This afternoon my wife was covering for an English teacher and that's when she got observed(!). It's not her lesson plan, they're not her kids, and it's not even her area of certification (though she's taught English before). And yet, that's part of her record now. Amazing. I almost want to send this into Dilbert...

In our school district, there are both formal and informal observations. If your wife has had four observations, possibly two of them were of the informal variety. On formal observations, principals (usually) will have the teacher's lesson plans, for the day of the observation, ahead of time so the principal knows some things to look for as a form of observation preparation.

All observations bring with them a certain amount of stress that is not usually there, but your wife's principal (probably) understands the situation under which s/he was observing and will make judgements accordingly.

All school districts are different with regards to structures and procedures. Four observations, even for what would be considered a first-year teacher, seems like a high number to me. Is it a small school? Does more than one person conduct the observations? (Like I mentioned previously) is there a difference between formal and informal observations and how long, timewise, does each one generally last? Are there pre- and post obervation conferences with the teacher? All of this "observation time" adds up when you consider probably half of the staff gets observed every year.

Hope all is good for her.