September 25, 2018
2018 MEMSPA Annual Conference | December 5-7, 2018
Doing More By Doing Less
Amie McCaw, MEMSPA Professional Development Chair
Hello fellow MEMSPA friends!

I hope all of you have had a great start to the new school year and the summer break allowed you extra time with your family and friends.

This past summer I felt fortunate that our district had our administration team on a two-day retreat to follow up on work we began the previous summer. We spent our time learning with one another with the facilitator, David J. Hulings. Hulings’ work centers around personal growth and learning about ourselves through personal archetypes and how our archetypes affect our team . Archetypes can be thought of like a prototype. One way he shares to think of it is if our personalities were the hardware the archetypes would be the software. We can have multiple software programs running. This article is not meant to be a lesson on archetypes but more about what we walked away with from our two-day retreat. If you would like to learn more about archetypes here is a link to David J. Hulings website .

New Student Learning Objectives (SLO) Educator Evaluator tool eases compliance with Michigan Public Act 173
Many of you are likely familiar with the law’s mandate, but the official name is PA 173. Signed into law in 2015, PA 173 governs educator evaluations for teachers and administrators in the State of Michigan . A key requirement mandates that educator evaluations be conducted annually, and that they incorporate student growth data as a significant component, beginning with 25 percent of the evaluation in the 2015-2016 school year and growing to 40 percent in 2018-2019. Teachers and administrators with three consecutive years of highly effective ratings may receive biennial reviews in place of annual reviews, making the 2018-2019 results particularly critical.

To that end, MEMSPA is taking an active role in supporting Michigan HB 5707, pending legislation that is seeking a one-year reprieve on the 40 percent student growth data for the 2018-2019 school year.

Partner Spotlight
Live Webinar
Empowering Teacher Effectiveness: 5 Factors for Success

Join Dr. Liz Brooke, CCC-SLP, Chief Education Officer at Lexia Learning, on  September 27th at 3:00 p.m. EST  for the 30-minute webinar, “Empowering Teacher Effectiveness: 5 Factors for Success.” Register for this webinar to learn how incorporating these 5 key factors can help educators identify and address the specific needs of every student.

If you can’t make it to the webinar, don’t worry!  Use this link  to register anyway and we will send you the on-demand recording after the event.