An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 5 – Employee Evaluations

supervise his class until he arrived. I told John he is required to report to work on-time and that canceling parent meetings and needing to get coverage for his class had significant negative impacts on our school.

Keep your log, or computer entries confidential and in a safe place. No employee is entitled to review your comments about another employee. Employees in California enjoy a constitutional right to privacy in their personnel records and these notes are part of the record protected by this right. LCW Practice Advisor Your notes may be evidence if there is litigation. Therefore, your notes should create a good record for the school and contain only factual information and observations. Personal comments or opinions should not be included. Supervisors should consider maintaining a “drop file” for each employee under his or her charge. When something noteworthy occurs, either positive or negative, make a note of the date, the incident, and any conversation you have with the employee about the incident. Then drop the note into your file. This informal file provides a place to keep records of conversations, incidents and accomplishments. You may subsequently incorporate these records into a more formal communication with the employee. Additionally, you may use these notes in drafting annual reviews or other employee documentation. Once you have memorialized the incidents into the annual reviews, you can discard the notes. Alternatively, you could maintain a computer file for each employee you supervise, with categories similar to those in the annual review. With minimal editing, you can modify the computer file into an annual review. The computer file should be password protected. While the supervisor’s log or notes is a useful tool, it is only one tool. It does not alleviate the importance of supervisors discussing performance deficiencies with the employee and providing written documentation to the employee addressing those performance deficiencies. Supervisors should make sure not to confuse the two or think that his or her own log or notes satisfies the important tools of verbal and written communication with the employee about those performance problems. Well-prepared performance evaluations can be an important part of the discipline process because they give employees notice of the school’s expectations and their performance deficiencies. By putting employees on notice of performance deficiencies, performance evaluations can help the school defend disciplinary actions. The performance evaluation is a formal and important record of the employee’s performance and should reflect the issues that have been addressed throughout the year. However, the performance evaluation should not be the only feedback an employee receives regarding his/her performance.

An Administrator’s Guide to California Private School Law ©2019 Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 140