The Colorado Department of Education

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Communications Toolkit for District Leadership

These communications tools are meant to be used by district leadership and principals when training their staff or community about educator effectiveness. All resources are able to be modified and personalized to meet individual needs. Resources will be continually added to this page so make sure to check back often.

Resources available:

Commonly Asked Questions and Answers

These Q&A's are intended to train leadership and principals on how to answer some tough questions they may receive about educator effectiveness and the new evaluation requirements.

Customizable 101 PowerPoints with Talking Points

These high level overviews, or "101" presentations, of key educator effectiveness topics are able to be customized for different uses. They can be used by a superintendent to present information to district leadership and principals or used by a principal at staff meetings or in a professional development day. Please note that there are quite a few slides, including CDE foundational slides for context. The deck was designed with the “more is better” philosophy so please feel free to eliminate slides in your presentation. If you do remove the CDE foundational (ground setting) slides, we encourage you to insert your own with the purpose of showing how educator effectiveness fits into your overall goals.

  • Educator Effectiveness 101 PowerPoint - This PowerPoint is a high level review of S.B. 10-191, what changes are being made to the educator evaluation requirements and why the changes are being implemented.
  • State Model Evaluation System 101 PowerPoint - This presentation reviews the core values or guiding principles of the State Model Evaluation System that districts may choose to adopt. It also reviews the rubric used in the State Model Evaluation System, the Quality Standards, and shows how the rubric is intended to be used.
  • Colorado Content Collaboratives 101 PowerPoint - This presentation dives deeper into the measuring the 50 percent student academic growth standard that will be part of the new evaluation system requirements. The Content Collaboratives are a group of P-12 educators from around the state who are identifying and creating a resource bank of high-quality assessments in 10 content areas. The assessments are aligned to the new Colorado Academic Standards and, while not required, the assessments are meant to provide an optional resource for measuring student growth.

Educator Effectiveness Talking Points

These talking points were created in collaboration with the Colorado Education Association, the Colorado Association of School Executives, the Colorado Association of School Boards, the Colorado Department of Higher Education and the Colorado Department of Education. They provide the main framework of communication messaging that you can use in any of your communication vehicles to ensure your communications are accurate and delivering the right message.  You are welcome to adapt the messages but we encourage you to use the key elements: support, continuous growth, continuous improvement, and include students in the messaging. These can be used for any communication piece for any audience.  They can aid you in drafting email correspondence to staff, they can help you in preparing to give a presentation on educator effectiveness or they can simply act as a quick reference for you.

Educator Effectiveness Communications Strategies and Pitfalls

This document provides insights on common sense, yet often forgotten elements of messaging. Be sure to review this document often as you communicate about educator effectiveness and the new evaluation requirements. These do’s and don’ts should be reviewed by anyone communicating about educator effectiveness in your districts.

Fact Sheets

These short documents provide the facts and a high level understanding on many important topics. You can download the PDF and share with colleagues electronically or print them off and use at trainings. To access the Educator Effectiveness fact sheets, visit our Educator Effectiveness fact sheet page. 

Drop-in Articles

One tool aimed at increasing the level of district-level communications and saving leadership time are the monthly “drop-in” articles. Drop-in articles are:
• Pre-written electronic updates on key topics
• Able to be used as content for newsletters, websites, presentations, etc.
• As easy as copying, pasting, and inserting the superintendent’s/principal's name
• Available in two formats – one for a principal/teacher audience and one for a community/parent audience

Drop-in articles are like giving superintendents and principals their own PR agency as a ghost writer. The updates on key initiatives are already written saving you time and ensuring you are communicating the most recent, accurate and relevant information.

Principal/Teacher Audience
These drop-in articles are ready for district leadership and principals to e-mail to their staff with important updates around the work being done on standards, assessments and educator effectiveness. To use this resource, download the pre-written article below, copy the text into your e-mail, customize with your name and a personal message, and send! You could also use this content for your website, in a newsletter or as part of a presentation. The drop-in articles contain updates on work being done in many areas so if your district doesn't need a detailed update on one particular area, you are more than welcome to shorten or delete content from the pre-written drop-in article.

2013

2012

Parent/Community Audience
These drop-in articles are ready for district leadership/principals to use in parent and community communications (newsletters, web, etc.) as a way of keeping these audiences informed on the important work being done. Each month, a drop-in article is released on a particular topic, however, you can use any drop-in article at any time. They do not have to be sent in the month they were written.

Archive Editions

Implementation Brief
To share pilot experiences and strategies, CDE brought together a panel of early implementers in January to discuss their preliminary experiences with the new evaluation requirements and the Colorado State Model Evaluation System. This implementation brief highlights key strategies and insights from the panel discussion.