First impression:  What is your first impression

 At first glance I like it because it is competency based.

 I like that there is upward movement.

 I have to study it for the details.

Questions at next meeting:

After looking at it, what are your impressions?

 I like that it is performance based.  I like that it allows upward movement.  I wondered how these competencies would be judged and who would do them.  I wondered whether it would take any power away from principals.  That’s important in school-based management.  Would this be implemented system-wide or could individual schools opt for it?

What are your questions or concerns?

 As I mentioned, I am concerned about losing some of my management power if this is imposed and evaluated from ‘above’.

 I am concerned that it doesn’t say anything about inadequate teachers.  What if I get a school full of level 2 teachers?  Would I have to be the one who motivates them to keep growing? On second thought, I do that anyway.  What if I have a school full of teachers who want to be level 5,6,7...?  There won’t be enough leadership positions for each of them for every year!  And think of the conflicts if everyone wants to be a leader.  I guess you count on most of them to settle in the middle.  But what if they don’t?  They would have to go to another school which needs leaders or to Central Office.  (But that would take them out of this if they leave teaching.)

What about the paperwork involved in this new system?  Where would it fall? 

  Where do  you see it? 

I don’t know and wouldn’t know until I saw how the teachers would be evaluated... if it would be by someone here or someone coming in.  I just can’t see how the competencies would be judged.  That’s really important since raises are based on that.

What is your overall impression?

 I would like to see teachers evaluated on how they perform.  And I would like money to be attached to good, no, excellent performance.  This seems as if it would do it.  But I still can’t see how the performance will be measured.  We are so ‘into measurable goals’ these days.

Overall, it looks good and very well thought out.

What is your first impression?

 I see only 4 levels.  They had better be substantial!

 What kind of money are we talking about?  What is the starting pay?  Is it competitive with the other districts around it?  Let me take it and look at it.

Now that you’ve spent some time with it, what is your impression and what are your questions/comments?

 I still feel that with a limited number of steps/levels, the money difference needs to be substantial.  Also there should be a guaranteed 4% rather than ‘up to’ 4%.  Teachers need to know that they will make more every year.

 I don’t like the 1-year at level 1 for an experienced teacher.  In order for that to work, all the school systems around would have to be using the same scale so that one system would be more attractive than this one.

 I’m concerned about enough up-ward movement.  What if someone wants to move up and there are no leadership positions to take?  That teacher would be discriminated against because of lack of opportunity, not lack of desire.

 Another example would be that the teacher wants to be a mentor but there are no new teachers.  There are some years with very low turn-over.  Who would decide who would get the mentoring position (and therefore be working towards a promotion) and who would not get one and therefore not be able to show a leadership role.  In order to be fair, there would have to be a guarantee that those who wanted to be ‘promoted’ would be given all the chances that they need.

 I don’t see anything about backward movement.  You know that I would not support any kind of program which would take away earned salary from a teacher.

 I guess that’s about all.

Could you sum up your impression of this plan?

 I am not sure that it is fair because of the few levels and lack of guarantee that everyone would be given equal opportunity to get promoted.  I’d have to be really sure about that.

Oh, how much more time would this involve for individual teachers?  If there is a paperwork burden then the compensation had better take that into consideration!