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HCPS has made significant progress in achieving the goals of this first year of grant implementation. Having met the US DOE Core Elements prior to the award of the TIF grant, we have moved rapidly to begin carrying out the plan. A clear indicator of progress is that in June 2011, we awarded our first incentive bonuses to teachers and administrators.  In Year 1, incentive bonuses were based on teacher growth as determined by classroom observations. The goal of Year 1 was to ensure that every teacher grows to an instructional level that enables him/her to do a better job of providing students with engaging, high level instruction; the precursor for enacting the incentive for student achievement growth in Year 2.

 

Our key areas of focus throughout the first year have been: communication/stakeholder engagement; development of a framework for teacher evaluation and rigorous rubrics to measure teacher effectiveness in Learning Leaders schools; the creation of a collegial culture of effective teaching; data management system development; and issuance of first performance bonuses to teachers and principals.

The teachers will convene this summer in the Learning Leaders Academy to begin to develop learning contracts for students that will measure expected student growth. Teachers will use baseline data from three valid and reliable assessments: the Virginia Standards of Student Learning (SOLs), Phonemic Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS), and NWEA’s Measure of Academic Progress (MAP). Data analyses conducted by Henrico and CTAC (our external partner and evaluator) will be used this summer to assist teachers to define student growth for the 2011-2012 program year with annual student learning contracts continuing in the remaining four years of the program.

 

Henrico County Public Schools, in partnership with the Community Training and Technical Assistance Center (CTAC), was awarded a Teacher Incentive Fund grant in the amount of $16,447,775 over five years. Read the News Release.