It was another split vote from the Falls School Board Monday.
On a 3-3 vote, the Quality Compensation for Teachers, or Q-Comp, program may not return to the Falls district for the 2014-2015 school year.
“My concern with the Q-Comp program is I've heard several presentations here tonight about data and I've seen no data here to say whether that program is a success,” said board Chairman Gordy Dault, who voted against the district participating in the program for another year.
Board members Willi Kostiuk and Dena Wenberg also voted the program down, while Mike Holden, Darrell “Boxer” Wagner and Michelle Hebner voted in its favor.
“I like the program,” Holden said. “I just think (teachers) have worked toward making the school better and Q-Comp is part of that.”
The board will reconsider the issue when it meets in June. In the meantime, school officials are gathering information to hopefully achieve a different outcome.
“The vote was disappointing,” said John Sandberg, local teachers union 331 president and Falls High social studies teacher of Monday's action - or lack thereof. “We are meeting with (Superintendent Nordy) Nelson to work out the differences in the teacher evaluation plan and then we will discuss the Q-Comp program with him also.”
Sandberg, noting Dault's comment about lack of data, said teachers are compiling statistics and information from previous years about the goals of Q-Comp and how “very hard work by staff” has reached the goals created.
“As of (Wednesday), we do not have all the data in from this year's (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment) math scores, but they are very positive with most of the scores reported,” Sandberg said. “We won't know the final totals until mid June.”
Program history
Since the district started Q-comp, during the 2006-2007 school year, it has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the program.
The program pays teachers an additional stipend of $3,000 on top of their contract pay if they meet all five of the following benchmarks determined by the program:
- Develop and implement two professional growth plan “projects” each year.
- Attend weekly learning team meetings.
- Participate in peer and administration observations.
- Perform self assessments.
- Collectively meet school-wide student academic achievement goals.
Q-Comp's latest off-again status was in 2011, when it was discontinued by the board. The break-up lasted only a year before it made its way back into the district for the current school year.
“I'm supportive of the Q-Comp arrangement because it organizes school personnel into carrying out the different communication that's necessary to keep things going with curriculum and the whole cycle,” Nelson told The Journal Wednesday.
The timing was right to bring the program back last year because legislation now requires all districts to have a plan in place for teacher observation. Q-Comp, according to Nelson, addresses that plan.
“Without Q-Comp, there is an extensive state plan that is so neutral and so broad,” he said. “Almost everything in that plan would have to be re-discussed or re-written.”
In other words, with or without Q-Comp, the district will need some kind of plan to meet state guidelines.
“If there isn't a local plan (the board) will have to work out a plan from the state document and that's going to involve a lot of time putting it into place,” the superintendent said. “There's really no point in the teachers and the school board taking all the time again trying to revise or come up with another plan...I didn't expect there'd be a split vote over this.”
Cha-ching
Costs associated with the Q-Comp are minimal to the district compared to what the state of Minnesota chips in. The program, Nelson said, costs the district just over $100,000 in levy dollars and the state provides about $230,000 in aid. Without the program, the district will not receive that state funding.
Nelson, who will leave the district when his contract expires June 30, said moving forward, the district needs to stay consistent with programs like Q-Comp.
“The importance is keeping people organized and focused on student results,” he said. “Q-Comp helps with that. If there isn't Q-Comp there will need to be some other type of organized plan.”
