Standard 8.3: Confidential formative assessment documentation
Program leadership, program partners, and all stakeholders establish and maintain procedures for documenting confidential use of formative assessment to gather evidence of reflective processes that impact student learning and practice.
Beginning teacher formative assessment data is confidential and cannot be used for formal evaluation purposes. Trust must be maintained between the mentor and beginning teacher so that the beginning teacher has the opportunity for honest reflection. Program leaders must develop and implement a policy regarding the use of formative assessment and documentation to protect their use for program purposes only and not for evaluation of beginning teachers or for employment decisions. The policy needs to be shared with all stakeholders (e.g., mentors, beginning teachers, administrators) at the beginning of the year, and implementation must be monitored throughout the year.
Programs should do the following:
- Create a policy of confidentiality
- Create a written agreement for all stakeholders to sign relative to induction expectations, in particular confidentiality
- Provide training to administrators, mentors, beginning teachers, and program leaders about confidentiality procedures
- Develop and discuss the policy and consequences for non-compliance with administrators, mentors, beginning teachers, and program leaders
- Create a procedure for reporting non-compliance of the confidentiality policy
- Reiterate that administrators or staff who are part of the formal evaluation process cannot be part of the induction/mentoring formative assessment process
- Monitor and uphold the articulated policy
