Teacher Rights, Recruitment, Retention, and Evaluation

Student Learning Outcomes, Goals, Objectives:

Students successfully completing this course will be able to:

• Understand how federal, state, district, and school-based regulations, policies, and procedures are utilized in personnel decision-making and discuss the roles that legal and ethical reasoning play in their development;
• Describe the basic principles of education law and constitutional, ethical, and educational values that support them with specific emphasis on teachers’ rights;
• Understand significant legal cases on issues of equal educational opportunity and teachers’ rights;
• Understand the process for creating and monitoring processes for hiring, inducting, and onboarding/mentoring new and veteran teachers and other school staff;
• Articulate, describe, and apply ethical, legal, and effective approaches to teacher recruitment, retention, and evaluation, including appropriate documentation of performance;
• Hone skills to provide meaningful, effective, and actionable feedback to teachers in both informal settings (e.g., walkthroughs, informal snapshots, formative inspections, teacher grow conferences) and formal evaluative settings (formal observations; post-conferences; and summative evaluation conferences, including all forms/documentation/processes used in NC); and
• Examine, understand, and demonstrate the roles that highly effective School Leaders must exercise within and across the topics listed in numbers 1-6 above, especially in rural schools.

Course Grading Information:

Activity/Performance Measure	Percentage/Points
Human Resources Plan	20%
Teacher Evaluation and Reflection	20%
Education Law Case Studies	20%
Teacher Retention Audit	10%
Employee Relations Case Study	10%
Discussion Boards	10%
Course Participation	10%

Grade Minimum % Performance Level

Percentage	Letter Grade
93%	A
90%	A-
87%	B+
83%	B
80%	B-
77%	C+
0%	F

Attendance/Participation:

Students are expected to attend all classes and be well-prepared for class, including arriving before class begins and having read and being fully prepared to discuss all assigned readings.

Active participation is integral to learning in this class, and students are expected to question, debate, and comment critically in a manner that is appropriately professional, civil, and scholarly.

A student’s participation in class will contribute to his/her learning and to the learning of his/her classmates.

Students should disengage cellular telephones, beepers, alarms, and any other distracting electronic devices while they are in class.

Checking e-mails, responding to text messages, or browsing social media platforms is never appropriate when class is in session.

Course Materials Purchased by the Students:

• Marshall, K. (2024). Rethinking teacher supervision and evaluation: How to shift the conversation to coaching, continuous improvement, and student learning (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
• Tran, H., & Kelley, C. (2024). Strategic human resources management in schools: Talent-centered education leadership. Routledge.
• Umpstead Pratel, R., Thomas, C. D., Muñiz, R., Emmerson, E. G., Krimbill, E. M., & Surface, J. L. (2024). The principal's legal handbook (7th ed.). Education Law Association.