When Compass teacher performance evaluations were released by the state last week, only one of four New Beginnings Schools Foundation’s charter schools had complete data the public could review.
Ratings for the other three network schools? Not available, according to the state Department of Education’s website. But it is unclear why exactly the teacher evaluation information is unavailable.
Compass is the state’s newly instituted educator support and evaluation system. Teachers are observed multiple times a year by their supervisors, and coupled with student performance data, they receive evaluations.
Of 56 Recovery School District schools in New Orleans, only five displayed the numberless “#N/A” in place of percentages for teacher’s “final evaluation ratings.”
Three of those schools were New Beginnings schools. The other two were John McDonogh High School and Walter L. Cohen High School.
Those three schools — Pierre Capdau Elementary, Gentilly Terrace Charter School and Lake Area New Tech Early College High School — each had a principal resign during the 2012-2013 school year.
However, even with the departure of a principal mid-year, the state department of education confirmed that an assistant principal or another administrator could have completed the teacher observations.
New Beginnings CEO Sametta Brown said those numbers may not show up on the state’s website “because there was no final evaluation put in by school leaders.”
Lake Area’s principal resigned in late 2012 and the two elementary school principals left their posts in May.
The replacement principal at Lake Area, who joined the high school in December 2012, resigned during the first week of August, something that didn’t go unnoticed with high attrition rates plaguing the network over the summer. In June, school leaders learned that one-third of network staff would not be returning in the fall.
None of the 18 Orleans Parish School Board schools were lacking information.
Barry Landry, a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Education, said the department is reaching out to schools that did not provide data — including the three New Beginnings schools.