ASSEMBLY EDUCATION COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 5877  

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  DECEMBER 14, 2023

      The Assembly Education committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 5877 with committee amendments.

      The amended bill revises the schedule for summative evaluations of tenured teachers, principals, assistant principals, and vice-principals. Under current law these employees are required to receive a summative evaluation every year. Pursuant to the bill’s revised schedule, once an employee acquires tenure, a summative evaluation will not occur until two years following the acquisition of tenure.

      For each summative evaluation, the amended bill provides that if an employee: receives a rating of highly effective, the next summative evaluation will occur three years later; receives a rating of effective, the next summative evaluation will occur either two or three years later, at the discretion of the employee’s supervisor; or receives a rating of partially effective or ineffective, then the employee is required to receive a summative evaluation for the each of the following two years. In the latter case, the bill provides that: if the employee is rated ineffective or partially effective in the first year and in the following year is rated ineffective, then the superintendent is to file a charge of inefficiency. However, if the employee is rated partially effective in two consecutive summative evaluations or is rated ineffective in the first year and partially effective the following year, the superintendent is to file a charge of inefficiency but may defer the filing of tenure charges. Finally, if the employee receives one rating of ineffective or partially effective and one rating of effective or highly effective, the employee will continue to receive annual summative evaluations until receiving two consecutive ratings of effective or highly effective. The employee will at that point return to the evaluation schedule established under the bill.

      The amended bill also provides that each school is to annually issue a statement of assurance detailing the employees who did not receive an evaluation in that year and attesting that those employees were rated effective or highly effective in their most recent evaluation.

      Finally, the amended bill provides that teacher generated student growth data is not to be collected except by a teacher in years in which the teacher is receiving a summative evaluation.  Summative evaluations for principals, assistant principals, and vice principals may consider any available cumulative data but are not to require the collection of additional teacher generated student growth data. Teacher generated student growth data is defined as any data collected by a teacher to measure student progress toward individualized goals and does not include standardized testing performance data.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amended the bill to provide that nothing in section 1 of the bill is to be construed as limiting a school district’s ability to conduct administrative and supervisory practices for purposes other than summative evaluations.