New school year, new students and a NEW Evaluation System, Oh my!

I currently work at a Title 1 school who volunteered to be a part of the new evaluation system. There are 14 Phase 1 schools in the county. On Monday, all of the Phase 1 schools received training on the new teacher evaluation system based on the Charlotte Danielson model. This training was presented by fellow teachers from my staff. During the summer they attended a week of training on the new system.  This program is broken up into 4 domains: Domain 1-Planning and Preparation, Domain 2- Classroom Environment, Domain 3- Instruction and Domain 4-Professional Responsibilities.  Within each of these domains, there are several components depending on your job title.
     I have to say that after the first 30 minutes of the training, I was completely overwhelmed and a little freaked out. Looking at all of the papers, the coordinating book and seeing all of the different domains and its components, I wondered if I would have the time to teach or would I have to be focused on meeting each criteria so that my overall evaluation would be positive. Needless to say that as I looked around I was not the only one who seemed to be engulfed in a sea of papers and looking for some help. We received that help from our amazing trainers (Jan, Samantha, Wendy and Marilyn). Each one took a domain and focused on helping us to understand what was required. Marilyn had us discussing verbiage, Wendy and Samantha had us working in groups and Jan had us using visuals. By using several methods of teaching, the trainers explained a multitude of information in ways where each member of the faculty could understand, process and ask pertinent questions.

        Once this section was complete, we still had to learn about the different "Levels of Performance" that each teacher will be evaluated on. This system is ranked from: Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient to Distinguished. This section was the most enlightening because as a teacher I want to be the best (distinguished) all of the time. This in reality is impossible and that is OK!! One of our trainers put it perfectly: "You LIVE in Proficient and you VISIT Distinguished." We as professionals strive to be the best all of the time and that is a great goal BUT there is always room to improve, change or tweak something. I know that we always tell our students that they are "Always Learning" and as teachers we need to remember that we too are "Always Learning."
     Our next training session is on the new Professional Growth Plan (replacing the IPDP). I am looking forward to see what this entails and how this plan will be personalized for my needs.