It seems there's even more crazy ideas about how to evaluate teachers than we originally thought. Now, one school district wants to include chance grocery store encounters to the evaluation matrix. No, we're not joking.
That is the way it is in the Challis School District in Idaho, a state where nearly 30 school systems have adopted teacher evaluation systems that include as one measure how well teachers get parents involved in their child’s education.
In the five-school Challis system, teachers are supposed to make contact with the parents of each of their students at least twice every three months, according to the Associated Press.
A teacher can send a note home to fulfill one of the “contact” requirements, though the other must be face to face. It can, Challis Superintendent Colby Gull was quoted as saying by the AP, be fulfilled by a chat in the supermarket during an unexpected encounter with a parent.
That counts for official contact purposes, he said, “as long as they’re talking about what’s going on in the classroom and the parent is informed about their student.’’