Q-Comp – The Status of Our Proposal: In November, the Minnesota Department of Education responded to our application with a set of clarifications and modifications. We had a month to respond to them and we will make that deadline by sending in our final changes this week. This is a common part of the process and the changes they required were minor. They plan to give us final approval by January. At that point, we will begin sending out more information about specifics of the proposal for your review.
You already know the main components of the proposal – participants will create building wide and individual goals, and have three observations (two by a full time peer evaluator and one by a peer of your choice) that work much the same way our current Performance Appraisal System (PAS) works. If your building reaches its goal, all the participants at the site earn $210. If you reach your individual goal, you earn a separate $210. If you successfully complete your observations, you will earn a separate $1728.
Given this timeline, we plan to get out information via fliers in January, hold member meetings to go over the proposal around the district in February, and take a vote in March (it takes a 75% majority of those voting to pass). As soon as the state completes their process, we’ll finalize dates for ours.
Flexing Time: We are getting a good number of responses on last week’s question about your thoughts on flexing your duty day. The vast majority of the messages have been from people who want some flexibility in the beginning and end times of the duty day as long as it doesn’t end up actually increasing the number of the hours in the week or simply eats up work days. People are citing most often the reasons for flexing as finding time to meet with colleagues, parent communication, and medical issues. Wanting to “be treated as a professional” was a common phrase. What does being treated as a professional in the context of flex time mean to you? We meet as a Labor Management team to begin discussing this issue just before winter break. If you’d like to add your ideas before then, email us at ahem@anoka.k12.mn.us.
