Needs Assessment Inventory for Pilot School Leaders
Introduction: During the first three meetings between talent coaches and principals, coaches will collect a wide-range of
information on the talent management history & practices of individual leaders and schools. The answers to these
questions will provide individual coaches, as well as the entire Talent Management Pilot, with a better understanding of
the needs of leaders and schools as they begin to implement this work. We will use this information to establish
priorities, develop action plans, identify similarities/difference across schools and best tailor our support to the needs in
the field.
Needs Assessment Topics
First Visit Topics:
□ Teacher’s Beginning of Year Ratings
□ Leadership Vision: Hopes and Expectations for the Pilot
□ Leadership Opportunities
Second Visit Topics:
□ Tenure Status
□ Observation & Feedback History / Habits
□ Division of Labor: Effective Utilization of the Leadership Team
□ Class Rosters, Student Populations & Teacher Assignments
Third Visit Topics:
□ Readiness for Measures of Student Learning
□ School Performance Data
First Visit Questions
Teachers’ Beginning of Year Ratings
Review initial ratings of teachers provided during training:
- Coach shares distribution with leader (% of teachers in each category)
- Provide time /opportunity to revise
Ask:
- What information did you consider to determine this beginning of year rating?
- How much did student outcomes factor in to these ratings?
For the teachers in the Highly Effective category, what are their class assignments? Do you factor their effectiveness
level into your classroom assignment decisions?
For the teachers rated Ineffective, how many / which ones were rated Unsatisfactory last year? Was anyone else
rated Unsatisfactory?
Leadership Opportunities
What leadership opportunities do you have in place right now? In other words, do you have APs? Department Chairs?
Lead Teachers? Coaches? Any other leadership positions?
Do you foresee upcoming opportunities or vacancies for leadership positions?
Do you have staff members with leadership potential?
If yes, how soon do you think this individual would be ready to take on more responsibility? Are there interim
steps (i.e. projects, committees, etc.) you could take to provide this individual with leadership opportunities?
Leadership Vision: Hopes and Expectations for the Pilot
- Having been through training, what are your top three burning questions?
- Professionally, what are you hoping to gain or improve within your own practice as a result of participating in the
pilot?
- Imagine having an effective teacher in every classroom, serving every student. What would it take to get there?
Second Visit Questions
Tenure Status
- How many of your teachers are tenured / what percentage?
- How many teachers were up for tenure last year? What was the outcome?
- Number / Percent of teachers who were granted tenure? Extended? Denied?
- How many teachers are up for tenure this year? Who?
- How many first & second year teachers do you have? How many are new to your building (but not necessarily first
year)?
Observation & Feedback History/Habits
Frequency
- Approximately how many observations did you conduct for each teacher last year?
- Of the observations you conducted, approximately what percentage were followed up with written feedback?
Verbal Feedback?
- How many observations per teacher were conducted by APs? Coaches? Other staff?
Approach
- When you observe, do you have a note taking template or approach you prefer?
- Are observations / feedback aligned to a framework/rubric? In other words, do the leaders/teachers have a shared
language / understanding of what effective practice looks like? If so, what do you use?
- When you follow up with teachers in writing, what does that look like? Do you send an email? Share thoughts on a
post-it? Document formally and have them sign?
- What percentage of your classroom observations are pre-arranged between you and the teacher? In other words, how
often does the teacher know you are coming?
- If you do partial period observations, do you plan them out ahead of time? Or, do you decide day to day who you
would like to see?
Division of Labor: Effective Utilization of Leadership Team
- Who is on your leadership team?
- Describe the history of your work with this leadership team in the past:
- Areas of expertise?
- Areas of growth?
- How have you planned to share supervisory responsibilities across your leadership team? For example, is division of
labor based on grade level, department etc.?
- Which teachers, specifically, will be supervised by which leader (acquire a teacher by teacher list)?
- Consider who will supervise the following:
- Teachers up for tenure this year?
- Teachers who were extended from last year?
- First year teachers?
- Teachers new to the building?
- Teachers who received an Unsatisfactory rating last year?
Teacher Teams:
- Do teachers have common planning time?
- How often/ when do they meet? Who leads these meetings?
- How are they organized? Subject? Grades?
- Do (how often?) leaders attend these meetings?
- Do you have Inquiry Teams?
- What do they focus on? How often/ when do they meet?
Class Rosters, Student Populations & Teacher Assignments
- How are students assigned to classes (i.e. heterogeneous groupings? Ability groups? Honors classes?)
- How are teachers assigned to groups of students? In other words, what do you consider when assigning teachers to a
group of students (i.e. do you consider past performance? Tenure status?)
- What types of special education classes does your school offer (CTT, 12:1:1, etc.)?
- What percentage of your students are English Language Learners? Special Education?
Third Visit Topics
Readiness for Measures of Student Learning
Technological Readiness
-
What sort of capacity do you have for implementing Computer Adaptive Tests?
- Do you have a computer lab?
- Laptop cart/s?
- Reliable internet connection?
Personnel Support
-
Do you have a testing coordinator or a data coordinator that could share responsibility for oversight of this
work?
-
What support structures do you have in place to get this done (i.e. APs? Department Chairs?)
School Performance Data:
- How would you describe the strengths / growth areas in your building, based on student performance data detailed in
the School Progress Report? Consider digging into:
- ELA/Math growth / attainment scores
- Performance by subgroups (ELL? SPED?)
- Graduation rates (if high school)?
- Relation to peer horizon group?
- According to your last School Quality Review, what are your two biggest priorities for this year?
- According to your School Survey, what two things does your school do particularly well? What two things would you
like to improve this year?