(a) An educator holding an initial license pursuant to § 1210 of this title must receive a Delaware Performance Appraisal System II (DPAS II) evaluation annually. An educator holding a continuing license pursuant to § 1211 of this title or an advanced license pursuant to § 1213 of this title must receive a Delaware Performance Appraisal System II (DPAS II) evaluation at least every 2 academic years. For purposes of this subchapter only, the term “educator” shall also include specialists who practice in Delaware public schools, whether or not they are licensed and certified by the Department. The evaluation must be consistent with the Delaware Professional Teaching Standards and the Delaware Administrators’ Standards, and must otherwise be in accordance with the criteria and requirements of this section.

(b) The Department, with the consent of the State Board of Education, shall promulgate rules and regulations to administer the Delaware Performance Appraisal System II (DPAS II). The DPAS II must include an overall rating and a student-improvement component rating, and must identify what constitutes satisfactory performance and unsatisfactory performance on the overall evaluation and on each component of the evaluation. For the purposes of § 1273 of this title, DPAS II must also include a definition of “pattern of ineffective teaching” and define “pattern of ineffective administration” as it relates to unsatisfactory performance on the overall DPAS II evaluation.

(c) (1) DPAS II must have no more than 5 components and must have a strong focus on student improvement, with 1 component dedicated exclusively to student improvement. All components must be weighted equally beginning in the 2017-18 academic year.

(2) For all Part A and Part B goals, the educator, as well as the administrator, may propose measures to be used to provide data to judge progress towards the goals. The proposed measures must be approved by the administrator, and not result in additional assessments for students. With regard to Part B goals, the measures must be selected from a list of the standardized measures approved by the Department.

(3) The measure of student improvement must take into consideration student absence, student mobility, student chronic noncompliance with school rules, chronic failure by parents to aide by the Parents’ Declaration of Responsibilities under § 157 of this title, and other factors that may adversely affect the evaluation. If a student has missed more than 15% of the class time, the student’s performance shall only be used with the agreement of the teacher under this chapter.

(d) A local school district may develop and implement other assessment tools that measure annual student improvement, including assessments in other content areas. Assessment tools developed and implemented pursuant to this subsection must be approved by the Secretary and must be funded with local funds.

(e) Nothing in this section prevents a local school district from administering other evaluations in addition to the Delaware Performance Appraisal System II, provided that administration of additional evaluations is reported to the Department.

(f) A local school district, vocational-technical school district or charter school may make application to the Department for a waiver of the provisions of the DPAS II evaluation system, which shall be granted, subject to the provisions of rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to this subchapter, if the request for a waiver is based on a locally developed evaluation process that is demonstrated to be the product of the collective bargaining process pursuant to Chapter 40 of this title and community review and is as rigorous and as educationally sound as DPAS II, provides for evaluating educator performance by measuring student growth using multiple measures over the course of a curricular year, and contains a mechanism for certifying evaluators and for quality control.

(g) The Department shall promptly establish a pilot program in not more than 3 local education agencies. The pilot program, which shall be for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 academic years, shall weigh all components equally, shall incorporate a survey provision for parents and students to be included within Component IV of the evaluation, and shall meet the following requirements for each participating local education agency:

(1) Any such program shall be conducted with the consent of the school district and organization representing the district’s educators for collective bargaining purposes.

(2) Such program shall, to the fullest extent practicable, use the mathematical algorithm recommended by the DPAS II Subcommittee and contained in its Final Report dated March 31, 2016, as Appendix C to determine final or summative ratings for evaluations.

(3) The component dedicated exclusively to student improvement shall contain 2 parts. The first part, known as “Part A,” shall contain an individual goal created by the educator and administrator that is based upon the school or district improvement document and demonstrates the educator’s contribution to student growth for his or her current cohort of students. The second part, known as “Part B,” shall contain an individual goal created by the educator and administrator that is based upon an assessment approved by the Department. The administrator shall assess the progress toward goals, regardless of whether the educator has satisfied the requirements of § 1403(a) of this title, is on an improvement plan, has expectations contained in the most recent performance evaluation, or has a satisfactory most recent performance evaluation.

(4) In the event that the educator and administrator cannot agree upon the goals to be included in the component dedicated exclusively to student improvement, the goals shall be determined as follows:

a. For educators who have not satisfied the requirements of § 1403(a) of this title, the administrator shall determine the goals to be included in the component dedicated exclusively to student improvement.

b. For educators who have satisfied the requirements of § 1403(a) of this title but are on an improvement plan or have expectations contained in their most recent performance evaluation, the administrator shall determine the goals to be included in the component dedicated exclusively to student improvement.

c. For educators who have satisfied the requirements of § 1403(a) of this title and whose most recent performance evaluation is satisfactory, the educator and administrator shall each determine a Part A and Part B goal. In such instance, each goal shall be of equal weight.

(5) For all Part A and Part B goals, the administrator shall identify the measures to be used to provide data to judge progress towards the goals. In regards to Part B goals, the measure must be selected from a list of standardized measures approved by the Department.

(6) The administrator shall be solely responsible for assessing progress toward the goals using the data generated by measures identified by the administrator and any other data provided by the educator and accepted by the administrator for this purpose.

72 Del. Laws, c. 294, § 2; 70 Del. Laws, c. 186, § 1; 72 Del. Laws, c. 295, § 2; 73 Del. Laws, c. 44, §§ 10, 11; 73 Del. Laws, c. 84, § 2; 74 Del. Laws, c. 13, §§ 8-12; 75 Del. Laws, c. 77, § 38; 78 Del. Laws, c. 53, § 46; 79 Del. Laws, c. 221, § 1; 80 Del. Laws, c. 429, §§ 1-4.