The Boys & Girls Clubs of Albany works alongside the City School District of Albany to deliver 16 accessible Pre Kindergarten classes at six different schools schools. The teachers and the teaching assistants are hired and managed by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Albany. One of our new focus areas at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Albany is to maintain the high quality work. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to collaborate with the Director of the of the Pre Kindergarten program Ms. Faith Silver to develop an annual performance review process for all staff members. The Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) development began with the ones who are closest to the students, our Teaching Assistants, whereby the Teachers will collect data in three different areas on a quarterly basis. This will allow the administration to offer professional development opportunities as needed and build an on-going dialogue in the classroom.
In addition to the policy and evaluation deadlines, the teachers were trained on online evaluation tools and rubric to help them evaluate their teaching assistants and deliver specific beneficial feedback to improve the teaching team performance. The teachers were also provided with training templates and scenarios to practice the evaluation policy developed by the administration.