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Welcome to the LEADS Newsletter!
Your all-access pass to the latest information about the newly redesigned evaluation system for Louisiana educators and school leaders.
A 2022 survey of more than 8,000 Louisiana educators revealed that most teachers and leaders were dissatisfied with our current educator evaluation system. They expressed a desire for better feedback, more opportunities for professional development and more customizable coaching.
Since that time, the Louisiana Department of Education has been working to redesign our state evaluation system to address the concerns of our education community and to create a more responsive and effective system that benefits both educators and students.
The Louisiana Educator Advancement and Development System (LEADS) brings multiple improvements to our evaluation system including practices grounded in evidence, a more fair and transparent process, and stronger connections between evaluation and professional learning. One of the key features of LEADS is the newly customized approach to feedback, coaching, and support. In addition, LEADS offers flexibility to differentiate the number of observations, freeing up leaders to spend more time supporting educators who are new to the profession or need more support to ensure their success.
As we begin our final planning year, we are excited to partner with you on this journey. As always, we are available to answer any questions or concerns you may have during the transition. Please contact leads@la.gov with questions or visit our LEADS Library for the most up-to-date resources.
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Success Stories
After completing the 2023-2024 Pilot Year, here's what participants had to say about their experience with LEADS:
“As a whole, it speaks to the vision that any teacher should have for their classroom and the goals in regards to relationship building, being curriculum-focused as well as being student-oriented.” – Teacher, Algiers Charter
“It covers all the basics of what we strive to do in the classroom.” – Teacher, West Feliciana Parish
“It’s an outline for us, as educators, of what is expected of us, just like we have expectations for our scholars. It sets the tone for what we need to be doing in our classrooms.” - Teacher, Claiborne Parish
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Teacher Toolkit
 Each month in the Teacher Toolkit we will share a valuable resource to support teachers in strengthening their practice. This month we are excited to share with you The Louisiana Educator Rubric and Evaluation Teacher Handbook.
The handbook is a resource for teachers on the Louisiana Educator Rubric (LER) and evaluation process. The LER is designed to build a shared language and understanding of effective practice that makes sense to teachers and contributes to conversations about improving teaching and learning at the school and classroom levels. The handbook provides clear and detailed descriptions of instructional practices that make up the rubric, capturing key indicators of classroom practice with enough depth to support both novice and experienced teachers to grow their skills. Examples from classrooms help teachers acquire a vivid understanding of what performance looks like at various levels of expertise in each domain and indicator of instructional practice.
The handbook also provides resources for teachers to prepare for and benefit from the pre-conference, classroom observation, post-conference, and coaching cycle. Teachers will find guiding questions and templates to help them prepare for successful pre- and post-conference meetings, including support for self-reflection which is a key component of the process. Connections between feedback and the professional learning and coaching systems is described in depth, with examples of how teachers are supported through coaching plans.
Teachers have asked how the LER will be applied in non-traditional classrooms, and the handbook provides detailed descriptions and examples for a variety of non-traditional teachers.
The purpose of observation and feedback is to support teachers to continue to grow as professionals and support their students – this toolkit offers a range of resources to provide teachers with that support.
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Evaluators are Trained and Certified to Ensure High-Quality Feedback, Coaching, and Support.
Section 311 of Bulletin 130, outlines the training and evaluator certification process. Evaluators go through a rigorous face-to-face training and certification process to ensure that observation and feedback is high quality, evidence-based, and actionable. This in-depth training prepares evaluators by deepening the understanding of indicators on the rubric and the shifts across the rubric toward student ownership. Upon completion of training, evaluators must pass a performance-based certification assessment, and all evaluators must be recertified annually.
Training for evaluators teaches them how to ensure that post-conferences are evidence-based and analytical. Principals and other school and teacher leaders must demonstrate that they can plan effective post-conferences in order to become certified evaluators. Post-conferences provide teachers with two kinds of explicit feedback —one “area for reinforcement” and one “area for refinement,” each of which is tied to a specific indicator on the Louisiana Educator Rubric (LER). Evaluators and teachers analyze how a particular strength of the lesson contributed to student learning and discuss how the teacher can continue to build on that area of strength in future lessons - reinforcement. Then they analyze an element of the lesson that could have been improved, thus better contributing to student learning, and discuss how the teacher can work to improve that area in future lessons - refinement.
The refinement area becomes the driving force of the coaching cycle and coaching plan. Training teaches evaluators how to plan for a seamless transition from the post-conference to the coaching cycle, where collaboration between a designated coach and the teacher is intentional and specific to support growth in the refinement area.
Evaluators make connections to the Louisiana Educator Rubric using videos of Louisiana classroom lessons.
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- Take a moment to review the LER and identify a rubric indicator you would like to explore and understand better.
- Dive into the explanation and examples section of the handbook for that specific indicator.
- Reflect on how your current instructional practices align to the indicator, and identify one next step you will take to advance your practices to more closely align to the indicator.
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Shortcuts to Success: LEADS Quick Links |
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