An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 5 – Employee Evaluations

 You have not turned in lesson plans at the beginning of each week during the month of May, as you are required to do. Specifically, you did not turn in lesson plans on May 3 or May 10. You never turned in lesson plans for the week of May 3 and you turned in lesson plans on May 12, but they only covered May 12, 13, and 14.  The scalpels in your classroom have been left out and unsecured several times this month. On May 1, three scalpels were left out next to the sink in the lab area from the third period until the last period when I walked through your classroom, noticed the scalpels, and asked you to immediately put them in the locked cabinet where tools are supposed to be stored. The same thing occurred on May 5. On May 18, an open box with ten scalpels was laying on your desk when I visited during fourth period.  You have not turned in attendance on a daily basis this month. You did not turn in attendance to the main office on March 3, 4, 9, 11, 18, 19, 20, and 30. Specific language also references the rules or policies that the employee violated. This makes clear to the employee exactly what behavior was inappropriate, as well as reminding the employee this rule is part of the expectations of all employees. Some examples of how to reference the policies are:  Your use of demeaning language towards your students violates your obligation to act respectfully and professionally towards our students and to use positive methods to motivate your students.  Your failure to attend nine scheduled staff meetings violates the requirement that teachers attend regularly scheduled staff meetings at their school site. This rule is set forth in the faculty handbook and the school calendar for the 2017-2018 school year.  Your failure to turn in complete lesson plans at the beginning of each week violates the directive I gave to you in my memo to you dated May 1, 2017.  Your failure to secure all scalpels and having scalpels laying out in various parts of the classroom while they are not being used for a specific project violates safety rule 10(b) regarding “use of and securing dangerous equipment” in the faculty handbook.  Your failure to turn in daily attendance reports violates the directive in the August 25, 2017, memorandum I gave to teachers during the in-service at the beginning of this school year, a copy of which is attached. As well, this rule has been in effect since you started teaching at this school in 2010. IDENTIFY THE IMPACT The document should also identify the impact of the employee’s behavior on the school, students, parents, the community and other employees. This helps demonstrate the legitimate business need for documenting the behavior or incident. Some examples of how to identify the impact are:  Not reading a grade-level appropriate book to your class resulted in your students not being interested or engaged and was an ineffective use of instructional time. Also, by not reading grade-level appropriate books, you missed an important opportunity to create an enjoyable reading experience and to motivate your students to read.

An Administrator’s Guide to California Private School Law ©2019 Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 143