We have several goals at Vibrant Schools, and with the help of our members, we can make it happen! Vibrant Schools platform is:

Increase collaboration time for teachers to learn from each other and improve instruction.
~Time to align curricula, evaluate student progress, assess content-level and grade-level
expectations.
~In the face of a budget crisis where many teachers are losing all instructional supports
that they receive from the district, this is one way to allocate time and provide internal
support for teachers.
~Innovate: reallocate TRI funds, flex staff meeting time, reallocate clock hours, leave early
or come late for collaboration.

Expand mentoring and coaching to help teachers go from good to great and from great to greater.
~Expanding these programs will allow our schools to leverage the knowledge and
experience of teachers who are already making great strides in improving student
achievement, as well as, advance and retain those teachers who are making the greatest
impact.
~Federal funding opportunities available (such as Teacher Incentive Fund grants) to
support the creation of coaching programs in schools in our district.

Require ongoing cultural competency training that is directly linked to student learning and responds to the diversity of the school and community.
~Culturally competent staff and administrators boost student achievement and help them
develop critical skills for engaging in an increasingly diverse world.
~Develop a cadre of trained teachers and principals from each building to train other
building staff using LID days or other staff development days.

Expand the teacher evaluation process to include principal and peer observation, cultural competency, professional development, and multiple measures of student achievement (vs. principal observation only).
~We need to be able to distinguish the poor from the good and the good from the great
teachers.
~There is no silver bullet; an effective process must include multiple measures of
determining a teacher’s impact on student achievement.

Apply evaluations when staffing decisions are made, to get the best teachers where we need them.
~When high-stakes staffing decisions are made in the best interest of students, more of
our high-need students will have access to effective teachers.

Clear the way to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom.
~Tacoma Public Schools research show that last year, only 0.4% (7 out of 1,536 teachers
in Tacoma) were rated unsatisfactory.
~We also know that in the past five years, no teacher has been removed from the
system due to poor performance (data from 2011 analysis of CBA and OSPI data released
April 6, 2011).
~Setting standards and guidelines for this process will ensure that it is done in a
reasonable timeframe and respectable manner that benefits students and the teaching
profession.

Recognizing teachers with higher pay based on the contributions they make to student achievement, to their peers, to the broader school community through their effectiveness, leadership, and willingness to mentor/coach peers. We also must link pay raises to job performance, not seniority or degree obtained alone.
~A teacher’s ability to positively impact student achievement and fill critical needs in our
school system must be reflected in their pay.
~One way to do so fairly could be for the district and TEA to work together on
implementing a pilot of performance-based pay in one or more schools in the district.

Build new pathways and sources for recruiting excellent teachers.
~The greater and more diverse the pool of talent from which we attract our teachers, the
more our students benefit.
~Tacoma must seek new pipelines outside of traditional recruitment practices to attract
excellent and diverse talent to our school district.
~Not just TFA – residency programs as well as pipelines within our own para system, etc.

Attract and retain excellent teachers to Tacoma by redesigning the salary schedule.
~Base salaries in Tacoma are some of the lowest in the region.
~We can improve this by redistributing the very large raises that currently occur at the
end of their career to result in raises for teachers in their first few years, and larger-
than-average pay hikes for teachers the year after they receive tenure.