Veteran teachers who are rated highly would only receive a written evaluation once every three school years instead of annually, under a recently introduced bill at the Colorado legislature.
Educators and administrators have struggled with the administrative paperwork of Colorado’s landmark teacher evaluation law, passed in 2010. They say as the demands on their job ramp up – from managing student mental health, school safety, and complying with new laws – the time they have to focus on student academics and relationships is disappearing.
The bill proposes that nonprobationary (tenured) teachers who are rated effective or highly effective receive a written evaluation at least once every three academic years instead of annually. It also shifts more authority to local school boards to design evaluation systems.
“Teachers are under a tremendous burden and strain with the current system,” said bill sponsor Rep. Eliza Hamrick, who taught high school history and government for more than 32 years. “This would allow them to drill down in the interim periods to become masters of their craft.”
Hamrick said the state is struggling with a teacher shortage and giving teachers more time with students improves their working conditions, which improves student learning.
The bill does not eliminate oversight for veteran teachers. If a tenured teacher receives a less-than-effective rating, the school board will require at least one documented observation and one formal evaluation in the next academic year. Districts could continue informal evaluations, coaching, and feedback between formal evaluations.
Teachers in their first three years would still have to be evaluated annually.
“You have a system that’s so bureaucratic that it actually takes administrators and principals out of classrooms where they’re helping teachers and forces them to sit behind a computer to fill out forms,” said Brandon Shaffer, executive director of legal and governmental affairs for St. Vrain Valley Schools, an original backer of the bill.
Shaffer said the time spent completing the state-required evaluation format is “not a value add if you do that every year.” Backers say the change would allow principals to focus on newer teachers who are struggling.
What’s in an evaluation?
Colorado’s evaluation system measures teachers across dozens of elements tied to quality standards, including classroom instruction, professionalism and student growth.
Hamrick said the current system requires formal evaluations every year, regardless of past performance. She said it takes hours to prepare lesson plans that address every point, collect artifacts to prove a standard, and dozens of hours for administrators to record and reflect on each point.
In 2010, Senate Bill 191 overhauled Colorado’s evaluation system by requiring annual evaluations for all teachers and tying ratings in part to student academic growth. Teachers must earn three consecutive effective ratings to gain nonprobationary status and can lose it after two consecutive ineffective or partially effective ratings.
Lawmakers have modified the system in recent years, including reducing the percentage of evaluations based on student growth from 50% to 30%. The 2022 bill also streamlined the teacher evaluation process.
Opposition
Colorado Succeeds, a business advocacy group that lobbies on education issues, opposes the bill. The group says the 2022 changes were designed to reduce burden, while preserving annual feedback and student focus. It argues not enough time has passed to see the 2022 changes implemented before making more changes.
“Strong teachers want meaningful feedback. In any high-performing profession, regular evaluation is part of growth and support,” said Shannon Nicholas, the organization’s senior vice president of impact. “Moving to a three-year cycle weakens the feedback loop and delays course correction that benefits both educators and students.”
She said reopening the debate over teacher evaluations shifts attention away from strengthening instruction, supporting teachers with high-quality coaching, and ensuring students are making measurable progress year over year.
The bill may also face further questions from Gov. Jared Polis.
“The Governor is proud of the work that Colorado has done to make teacher evaluations more effective and efficient for Colorado teachers,” said spokesperson Eric Maruyama. “He is very skeptical of any efforts to walk back on any of the successful work in SB22-070 that streamlined evaluations in a bipartisan way with the support of the larger education community. He looks forward to further conversations with the sponsors about this work.”
But backers say local school boards are best suited to make decisions on evaluation systems.
“The government that’s closest to the people governs best,” Shaffer said. “For somebody in Denver to try to tell a principal how best to evaluate the teachers in their school … how do you account for culture? How do you account for personal relationships? … You have to be boots on the ground in the school to be able to gauge that.”
The proposal is likely to face pushback from other education reform advocates who have long defended strict statewide accountability measures.
Those advocates have traditionally held up the practices of charter schools, independently run public schools, for all public schools to emulate. However, according to state records, 276 charter schools have waived the state-mandated teacher performance evaluations. It is unclear what evaluation systems those schools use or how closely they mirror state requirements.
One provision in a 2024 bill would have required charter schools to follow the same teacher evaluation standards as traditional public schools. The bill faced significant opposition and was killed.
