As public school teachers await their first performance ratings under the state’s new evaluation system, Department of Education officials say they are weighing ways to improve the controversial evaluations for next year, and plan to make changes by July 1.

As part of teachers’ 2013-17 labor contract, the state and teachers union agreed to the high-stakes evaluations, which starting next school year will tie ratings to pay raises, tenure and termination.

But since it was rolled out statewide last fall, teachers have decried implementation of the so-called Educator Effectiveness System, or EES, saying they don’t understand its design, haven’t been properly trained and are overwhelmed with the work required to prepare for the six areas measured by the evaluations.

"We’ve received a lot of feedback around the EES — all kinds, ranging from positive to negative, from ‘these are things you need to do to improve it’ to ‘scrap it.’ The range is tremendous," DOE Deputy Superintendent Ronn Nozoe told the Board of Education’s Human Resource Committee Tuesday.

The contract with the Hawaii State Teachers Association calls for a joint committee of DOE and HSTA officials to review the design, validity, reliability and supports for the evaluations and recommend changes to improve its design and implementation.

The committee last month conducted a survey of teachers that found fewer than 1 in 6 fully understand how their performance rating is calculated under the EES. About one-fifth of respondents said they don’t understand the evaluation system overall.

Overhauling teacher evaluations was a key pledge in the state’s application for its $75 million federal Race to the Top grant.

Under the EES, half of a teacher’s annual rating is based on student learning and growth, measured in part by standardized test scores. The other half is based on teaching practices and is rated in part through classroom observations and student surveys.

Nozoe said the joint committee is one of five groups providing feedback on the evaluations. Two others include advisory groups made up of teachers and principals.

"The big ideas that have come out: the need to simplify and streamline, make things more transparent, reduce the burden of the workload. Every group is giving us recommendations around those themes," he said. "We’ve tried to capture the different kinds of feedback and think about what proposed changes could be, being mindful of the whole picture."

He wouldn’t speculate what changes might be made, but said some of the feedback suggests reducing the frequency of classroom observations and student surveys, and other efforts to lighten the workload for teachers and principals.

Final recommendations will be sent to Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi for review on June 6.

"You are saying definitively to us there will be changes to the EES?" Board of Education member Amy Asselbaye asked.

"We are going to propose changes, yes," Nozoe responded.

Some Board of Education members cautioned against potentially diminishing the intent of the evaluations as a tool to identify ineffective teachers and reward effective ones.

"The perception is that it’s very difficult, time-consuming, burdensome," BOE member Brian De Lima said. "My concern is that we don’t swing so far to address those concerns to where the changes are so significantly one way that it no longer addresses the need for why we’re doing this in the first place."

"I would caution against overreacting," added BOE member Jim Williams, chairman of the Human Resource Committee. "Whenever you do something this big that’s never been done and you’re in the first year of it, there’s going to be growing pains. … I think the anxiety is, frankly, that it’s so-called high stakes and it affects people’s evaluation and pay next year and so there’s a lot of trepidation about that."

Campbell High School teacher Corey Rosenlee argued that the evaluation system is flawed and doesn’t achieve the stated goal of improving teacher quality.

"It gives the impression that we’re fixing teacher quality problems without actually fixing teacher quality because it ignores the underlying reasons why we can’t attract and retain quality teachers," Rosenlee said, citing low salaries and poor working conditions.

Rosenlee, who’s been teaching 17 years, the past eight at Campbell, believes the labor contract needs to be reopened to come up with a better tool in collaboration with teachers.

"The contract is so prescriptive of what needs to be in the evaluation. And they’re saying, ‘You signed the contract and we’re going to implement this even if it won’t help and will hurt education,’" he said. "It’s frustrating."