In the first year of implementation, every teacher and principal starts on a professional growth plan (unless the teacher or principal is already on an improvement plan). Starting with a professional growth plan allows for comparability within buildings, districts and the entire state. Professional growth plans help teachers focus on areas of professional development that will enable them to improve their practice. If student growth data are available, they are part of the plan. However, completing the self-assessment enables teachers to identify professional goals in the initial and subsequent years. After the first year of implementation, all teachers and principals will have a professional growth plan or improvement plan based on their student growth measures.

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The district develops an overall plan (with input from teachers) for using student growth measures for evaluation. Whenever possible, the goal is district-wide consistency. However, there may be instances when certain teachers need different percentages (for example, in the case of a new teacher). The district ultimately makes this decision.

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The department will randomly review districts and schools. If there are areas of concern, the department and the district or school may create a correction plan. The district or school must make the corrections identified in the plan.

Educator Evaluation Process Review webpage

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If you are a teacher with multiple subjects that have Value-Added data, you will receive a composite report. If you teach other non-Value-Added grades/subjects using approved vendor and/ or local measures, your data for growth measures should be proportional to your teaching schedule.

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For intervention specialists, the student growth measures depend on the availability of data. If you instruct students in grades/ subjects using the Value-Added progress dimension, you must complete the Roster Verification/Linkage process and may receive a Value-Added report. If you instruct grades/subjects that do not receive Value-Added reports, but your district or school uses an assessment on the Approved Vendor list, you must use data from those assessments. If neither is available, you will use the Student Learning Objective process and/or shared attribution with measures specific to your instructional setting. 

In co-teaching situations, it is very important to link your students to you, the teacher, to be accurate.  For Value-Added reports, this linkage determines your student growth report information. A similar district-developed process is necessary to verify student rosters for the student growth measures data in situations using approved vendor assessments or local measures. 

• More information in Business Rules for Student Growth Measures
• Information on the linkage (roster verification) process (Battelle for Kids)
• MCOECN Roster Verification

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Many gifted students enter school near, at, or above the proficient level. When no Value-Added or vendor assessment growth data are available, you will write student learning objectives. When writing student learning objectives, you will describe the specific student population and how this affects the establishment of growth targets. High achievement scores do not necessarily indicate progress, but gains do. Additionally, be certain to use assessments with “stretch” for the growth calculation. Stretch is where there are enough advanced knowledge/skill questions in assessments for these high-performing students to show achievement.

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Your district or school will evaluate all teachers under the evaluation model, unless the Business Rules for Student Growth Measures state otherwise. Therefore, your district or school needs to carefully review, on a case-by-case basis, whether each itinerant teacher meets the criteria stated in the Business Rules. Some of these criteria include a minimum of six students and meeting the locally determined minimum interval of instruction.  

• Itinerant Teachers and Ohio's Evaluation System
• Business Rules for Student Growth Measures

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If you teach a Value-Added course, you should automatically link regardless of the number of students you instruct. To receive a teacher-level Value-Added report, you must link to the equivalent of at least six full-time students for 4-8 reading or math or ten full-time students in other state tested areas. After linking, you will receive scores for your students. The system determines the students who factor into the full-time equivalent and determines whether you meet the minimum full-time equivalent students.

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Yes, if your schedule is comprised only of courses or subjects for which the Value-Added progress dimension is applicable, the entire student academic growth factor of the evaluation shall be based on the Value-Added progress dimension.                                                                                  

If you are instructing Value-Added courses, but not exclusively, the student growth measure progress dimension shall be used in proportion to the part of your schedule of courses or subjects for which the dimension is applicable.

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If you have Value-Added data available, then it must be used. Your district will decide if local student growth measures are used in combination with Value-Added data. A district might determine, as in this case, that your student growth measures will be the Value-Added data which is only available from the previous year and local measures, which are always from the current year.

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The vendor assessment requirement is only when Value-Added data is not available. So for example, if you are a 4th-grade teacher instructing both science and math, you will have a Value-Added report for math. You also administer an approved vendor assessment for science and will receive a growth report from the vendor. In this case, you will only be required to use the Value-Added data. Your district may still choose to use the approved vendor data as a local measure in combination with the Value-Added data, if you do not exclusively instruct Value-Added courses. However, if you do not receive a Value-Added report but use an approved vendor assessment in the manner prescribed by the vendor, you must use the growth data provided.

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Your district is not required to purchase approved vendor assessments. However, if you do not have Value-Added data and use an approved vendor assessment in accordance with the vendor’s guidelines and receive the vendor growth report, then the data from the vendor assessment must be used in your student growth measures calculation. If neither Value-Added nor approved vendor data are available, you will use the Student Learning Objective process with measures specific to your instructional setting.

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Your district will receive your teacher-level growth report from the vendor that will include a 1-5 rating for student growth. This number must be entered into the electronic Teacher and Principal Evaluation System (eTPES) at the local level for each teacher with data from the approved vendor assessment.

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No.  If you use an approved vendor assessment in accordance with the vendor’s guidelines and receive the vendor growth report, this report will provide a 1-5 rating for you.  It is a district decision to combine local student growth measures, such as student learning objectives, in content areas not measured by the approved vendor assessment. 

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There are three types of local student growth measures that show your effect on student learning:

1. Student Learning Objectives
2. Shared Attribution
3. Approved Vendor Assessments (for Category A teachers)

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The Student Learning Objective is a process to identify and use measures that are specific to relevant subject matter. Measures for student learning objectives must be district-approved and may include:

• District-approved, locally developed assessments
• Pre/Post assessments
• Performance-based assessments
• Portfolios
• Vendor assessments not on the Ohio Department of Education’s approved list.

Student learning objectives demonstrate a teacher’s impact on student learning within a given interval of instruction. Student learning objectives also contribute to distinguishing between effective and ineffective teaching. Ohio has developed clear guidance documents for districts and schools on developing, approving and scoring student learning objectives.

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Shared attribution is an optional local student growth measure that can be attributed to a group of teachers. It encourages collaborative goals and may be used as data in the student growth component of teacher and principal evaluations.

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Shared attribution measures may include:

• Building or District Value-Added is recommended if available;
• Building teams (such as content area) may utilize a composite Value-Added score;
• Building- or District-based student learning objectives.

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No.  Since districts and schools determine the percentage they will assign to the shared attribution and which measure of shared attribution will be used (i.e. district, building or department level Value-Added), shared attribution scores are manually entered.

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By choosing to use a measure that can be attributed to a group or the entire staff, many districts aim to encourage collaboration among staff. However, districts and schools must also consider that you and many teachers evaluated by this data may not be directly involved in establishing the score, i.e. high school teachers and special areas.  Furthermore, a shared measure is not a true picture of your impact on the students you instruct. For these reasons, the department recommends that districts using shared attribution as a local growth measure in teacher evaluation should consider keeping the weighted percentage low (between 5-10% or at least less than half of the student growth measure).

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eTPES is the electronic Teacher and Principal Evaluation System. This is an online system open to all Ohio districts and schools. All traditional public schools, JVSDs and Educational Service Centers are required to use the system. Here is more detailed information. Scroll down the page to Ohio eTPES.

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Student growth measures account for 50% of a principal's evaluation. Principals may utilize data from value-added, vendor assessments and local measures.

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Here is a link on the Ohio Department of Education’s website that includes an overview of student growth measures, the department-approved list of assessments, student learning objectives information and tools, and steps for designing local student growth plans for evaluation.  Additional information is added to this part of our website regularly. 

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You can find the Business Rules for Student Growth Measures here.

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No. Teachers can use student learning objectives as part of their student growth measures per the district plan.

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The Department will not collect or approve student learning objectives at the state level. It recommends that an existing district or building committee become trained to review, provide feedback, and ultimately approve student learning objectives. The composition of this approval committee is a local decision.

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If you are using student learning objectives as a growth measure, the Department recommends a minimum of two and recommends no more than four which are representative of your schedule and student population, but only one is required.

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Not necessarily. The student learning objectives should be representative of your teaching schedule and student population. Whenever feasible, all students you instruct should be covered by a student learning objective. Within the guideline of two to four student learning objectives, it is a local decision as to the exact number you will write and which courses should be covered. For example, for a self-contained 3rd grade teacher who instructs all four core subjects, a district may make a local decision to focus student learning objectives on reading and math only.

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The length is not the important factor. Quality over quantity is the consideration. The focus of the student learning objective is on the content. When writing the student learning objective, you should use the provided checklist to ensure it contains all of the required information needed for approval at the local level.  

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A Student Learning Objective (SLO) is a measurable, long-term academic growth target that a teacher sets at the beginning of the year for all students or for subgroups of students. SLOs demonstrate a teacher’s impact on student learning within a given interval of instruction based upon baseline data gathered at the beginning of the course. Each SLO includes:

• The baseline and trend data;
• The student population or sample included in the objective;
• The period of time covered by the SLO;
• The standards the SLO will align with;
• The assessments that will be used to measure student progress;
• The expected student growth; and
• The rationale for the expected student growth.

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High-quality SLOs state clearly which students are included in the learning objective, how growth will be measured over what time period, and why that level of growth should be expected of those students. High-quality SLOs include the following:

• The baseline and trend data.  The SLO data should summarize student information, identify student strengths and weaknesses, and review trend data to inform the objective and establish the amount of growth that should take place.
• The student population or student subgroup included in the objective. Every student should be covered by at least one SLO to ensure that no group of students is overlooked.
• The period of time covered by the SLO. The SLO should note the period of instruction used to meet the goal (i.e., quarter, semester or an entire year); this period of instruction should be the length of the course. Depending on the length of the instruction period, teachers also should include timeframes for mid-year assessments of progress so that they can adjust instruction or, in some cases, modify SLOs as needed.
• The standards the SLO addresses. SLOs should link to specific national or state standards for the grade or content area.
• The assessment(s) used. The SLO should include assessments both to track student progress and make midcourse corrections (formative), and to indicate if the objective was met (summative).
• The expected student growth within that period. The target for student growth should be realistic yet challenging. It also should include how growth will be measured.
• The rationale for the expected student growth. High-quality SLOs include strong justifications for why the goal is important and achievable for this group of students. Rationales should draw upon assessment data, student outcomes, and curriculum standards.

High-quality SLOs specify measurable goals that are ambitious, yet attainable. SLOs should be broad enough to represent the most important learning or overarching skills, but narrow enough to measure. When possible, SLOs should align with Ohio's Learning Standards.

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The SLO process reinforces best teaching practices and encourages educators to ensure that their students will be college and career ready. Teachers using best practices already follow an informal SLO process: They set goals for their students, use data to assess student progress and adjust their instruction based upon that progress. Thus, the SLO process provides teachers with ways to formalize their teaching practice, give input on how student learning will be measured and how they will be evaluated.

Unlike some other measures of teacher effectiveness, all school personnel can set SLOs because the ability to create SLOs does not depend upon the availability of standardized assessment scores. The SLO process allows all educators to focus on the specific objectives they want to achieve with their students and measure student growth using measures that are most relevant for their student population and content areas. SLOs enable all educators to demonstrate their impact on student learning and receive recognition for their efforts. 

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LEAs have some flexibility to shape the process to fit local contexts, but ODE recommends the following steps:

STEP 1:  Gather and review available data

STEP 2:  Determine the interval of instruction and identify content

STEP 3:  Choose assessments and set the growth target(s)

STEP 4:  Submit your SLO and prepare for review and approval

STEP 5:  Final scoring of the SLO

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If used alone, vague words like those mentioned in the question above are insufficient to describe baseline data.  Whenever possible, the description of the baseline and trend data should include student performance data, such as a table showing the range and frequency of student scores.  You should make written observations based on the data in this section. However, there must be data included.

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All teachers can find data relevant to their course. The rare exception to this may be a first year teacher or a teacher new to a course.  Data may be from related subjects if the subject is new to students. For example, biology teachers may glean useful information from reviewing last year’s environmental science examination. In addition, although students may not have received formal instruction in a subject, students may have background knowledge acquired from outside the school setting. A brief survey could also provide information about students’ background knowledge. You should use the first couple of weeks to gather data about your students.  During this time, give a pre-assessment or the first chapter or unit exam to provide valuable data for the student learning objective.

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Student learning objectives should be based on data from multiple sources when available such as standardized tests, portfolios of student work, and district-created assessments.

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Yes. Using performance data from multiple years can provide valuable information. For example, trend data may show that students in your class for the past three years struggled with converting fractions. Based upon this finding, you might include this skill in your student learning objective and then seek new instructional strategies for teaching fractions.

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Student learning objectives are typically developed after the school year has begun so that you can use your diagnostics or pre-assessments to develop the student learning objectives.  However, sections of the student learning objective, such as “standards and content” and “assessment,” may be completed prior to the start of the school year.

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Your baseline data will vary based on the subject and the availability of data.  You may use a pre-assessment as a source of baseline data.  The pre-assessment will contain the content and skills to be taught during the upcoming year.  Other sources of data are end-of-course assessments from the prior year, which are not being based on the current content but may be good proxies for the current course.

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The student population includes all the students enrolled in a course whenever possible.  An additional “focused” or “targeted” student learning objective may be created for a subgroup of students within the course who need targeted assistance. At least one of your student learning objectives should cover all the students enrolled in a course except in rare cases when you may have a very large student population. 

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Difficulty in achieving the targets is not a reason to exclude any subgroup of students.

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The expectation is that all students entering a course throughout the year receive a pre-assessment to determine any gaps in learning.  Every effort should be made to administer the post-assessment to each student enrolled in the course. These data are extremely beneficial to the next year’s teacher.  The Department expects each district to determine the minimum interval of instruction for student learning objectives. Understandably, you and your principal will need to discuss whether certain students meet these minimum requirements determined by your district. 

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Currently, per Ohio law, students who have 45 or more unexcused or excused absences for the full academic year are excluded from final calculations of your score for Value-Added.  Districts should remove students with 45 or more unexcused or excused absences from their Approved Vendor Assessment and local measures.  Additionally, for student learning objectives, districts should utilize the relevant interval of instruction as defined by the district.

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The Department expects each district to determine the minimum interval of instruction for student learning objectives. It is understood that you and your principal will need to discuss whether certain students meet these minimum requirements.  Therefore, this situation requires some flexibility within the district’s student growth measure plan because your schedule and assignment may require adaptions to the student learning objective process. Adaptations can be put in place to make the process work for you. The danger is that some students are not included in the student learning objective. Teachers, principals, and districts should try to avoid this. Remember that you should strive to show growth in as many students as possible. You should avoid any situations that exclude particular students who are low or high performing.

If you are a teacher who sees students for various lengths of time and at various points throughout the year, you can design a student learning objective around big ideas and content. Then you establish tiered targets based on the amount of time a student receives instruction.  Expectations for students who are in the course for longer periods of time should be different than those for students on shorter intervals.  This means that you should keep a roster of all students, possibly sorted by length of instruction throughout the school year.

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In cases where a teacher has large student populations, it is recommended that the district plan guides the administration and you to focus the student learning objective in a manner that encompasses as many students as possible.  The district plan should strive for comparability and consistency across subject and grade levels regarding the total number of student learning objectives per teacher as well as the size of the student population.

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Match the interval of instruction with the length of the course.  This may be a year, semester, trimester, or a quarter.  Districts with buildings using intervals of instruction other than a typical school year will need multiple approval periods for their student learning objectives.  For instance, in a high school using semesters, the approval committee would meet both at the beginning of the school year and again at the new semester to approve student learning objectives for their teachers.

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No.  State law requires the completion of the evaluation process by May 1. The Department recommends that you administer your post-assessments on or around April 15. This will allow adequate time to score the assessments, complete the Student Learning Objective Scoring Template, and submit the data to the evaluator by May 1.  

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If you instruct large numbers of courses, the district plan should guide the administration to work with you to identify the required courses as a focus for the student learning objectives.  If this does not help narrow the focus to the required number of student learning objectives, the focus should next be on the courses with the highest student enrollment. The district plan should strive for comparability and consistency among teachers across subjects and grade levels regarding the total number of required student learning objectives.

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Align student learning objectives in the following order:

1. Ohio's Learning Standards
2. National standards put forth by education organizations 

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You can list the standards in this section, but you also need to articulate the content of the standards. For example, simply listing “Grade 4 ELA Writing 2a” is not enough information. In this section you will need to explain the core knowledge and skills students must attain and why you identified those standards as the most important.

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You must have at least one student learning objective that covers the overarching standards that represent the breadth of the course.  For example, if the course is a year-long course, the standards and content section must reflect the overarching standards for that year-long course.  Once this course-level student learning objective is in place, you may then choose to write a targeted student learning objective, in which you focus on a subgroup of students (the low-achieving, for example) and also narrow the content to only those standards that these students have yet to master.

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To have sufficient stretch, an assessment must contain questions that vary in difficulty. The assessment should contain both basic and advanced knowledge and skill questions so that both low-performing and high-performing students can demonstrate growth.

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Using the same instrument as a pre- and post-assessment is not ideal. In fact, using the same assessment multiple times within the same year may decrease the validity of results since students will have seen the questions before.  A well-written pre-assessment (used in conjunction with other forms of baseline data) can be a valuable source of data, because it should closely align with the post-assessment to measure growth. Pre-assessments should assess the same general content as the post-assessment, be comparable in rigor, and should be reviewed by content experts for validity and reliability.

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• District-approved, locally developed assessments
• Pre/Post assessments
• Performance-based assessments
• Portfolios
• Vendor assessments not on the ODE approved list

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The Student Learning Objective Template Checklist does not specify that accommodations/modifications must be listed in the assessment section. However, articulating that accommodations/modifications are being provided to your students in accordance with their IEPs is an important fact as it demonstrates knowledge of your students.

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This is a local decision. It might be useful to consider grading tests in teams so you are grading your colleagues’ students, not your own students. Collaborative grading is used in many schools with established student learning objectives. Your district may wish to address this issue in the local Student Growth Measures Plan.

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It is certainly more challenging to determine if a teacher-designed assessment is valid and reliable.  However, districts can put procedures in place to help increase assessment validity and reliability. Using the checklist provided by the Department in the Guidance on Selecting Assessments for Student Learning Objectives is a good first step.  In addition, having content and assessment experts from the district or the local Educational Service Center review the assessments can help ensure that tests capture the information needed about student performance and are fair to all students. Standardized scoring procedures can also increase a test’s validity and reliability. 

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The Department strongly advises against an individual teacher creating an assessment. In rare cases where a team of teachers cannot create an assessment, you should develop the assessment in conjunction with an instructional coach, curriculum supervisor, special education teacher, English Language Learner teacher, and administrator or other faculty member with assessment expertise.

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This is not acceptable as it would not meet the requirement for demonstrating growth between two points in time.  If the student learning objective content covers an entire semester or year, the pre- and post-assessment should also cover the same content for the entire semester or year.  Using quarterly assessments would only assess the content for the quarter.  Since the student learning objective covers much more content than a quarter, it is not acceptable to use these assessments as pre and post-assessments.  These assessments would simply be used as formative checks for you to determine whether your students are making appropriate progress toward their established growth targets at the end of the course.  You can modify various questions from each of these assessments to create an overall pre- and post-assessment that would indeed measure the content for the entire course. 

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This is a learning process.  Evaluators can suggest how to improve the pre-assessment for next year.  The goal is to learn from the process in these early years.  Districts and schools should have clear expectations regarding assessments to ensure quality pre- and post-assessments.

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Instances may exist where one growth target may be acceptable for all students, but this is rare.  For example, you may have a small course, such as an honors seminar, in which students start the year with similar background knowledge and skill sets.  In this situation, one growth target for all students may be appropriate.  The Department recommends setting tiered growth targets to ensure you are addressing the needs of both the high- and low-performing students. Ultimately, every student will have a target within the established tiers.

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Targets should first be developmentally appropriate and then rigorous and attainable. Expecting a student to grow from below basic to proficient in one year may be very difficult.  However, in some cases, more than a year’s worth of growth is necessary to close the achievement gap.  The student learning objective process asks you to set high expectations for students and to establish these targets based upon the analysis of baseline data. You should consult with colleagues, curriculum directors, administrators, and instructional coaches when determining appropriate growth targets.

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In most cases, you cannot revise growth targets once the student learning objective has been approved.  If students are showing greater than expected progress, the teacher can extend the assessment to more fully capture the extent of student growth. However, the growth targets do not change.  Similarly, if a student is not making sufficient progress toward his or her growth target, you can alter or supplement the instructional strategies. But, again, the growth target does not change. In some extenuating circumstances, such as after a natural disaster, outbreak of serious illness, or an unplanned extended absence, you may be able to revise your student learning objective with district approval.

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The review and approval process helps ensure rigor and comparability at the local level.  The Department recommends those approving student learning objectives complete a calibration process to ensure all team members are upholding rigorous standards for every student learning objective within the district.  The state will monitor the implementation of student learning objectives by conducting random audits.

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Rationales must include strong justifications for why the growth targets are appropriate and achievable for the student population, and, therefore, must be based on student data and the content of the student learning objective.  The rationale ties everything together, and, as a result, it touches on every component that came before it.  Rationales explain why this learning is important by making connections to school and district goals.

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Click here for the Department's student growth measures webpage. It includes the Department approved list of assessments, student learning objectives information and tools, and steps for  designing local student growth measures plans for evaluation.  Information is added to the website regularly.  

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The Business Rules for Student Growth Measures addresses technical questions about Student Growth Measures, including those regarding teachers with highly mobile student populations or extremely high or low numbers of students. Districts and schools should assume all teachers included in the new evaluation system, per state law, will have growth measures unless these business rules state otherwise.  Click here to visit the business rules.

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