Pursuant to Nevada law probationary teachers at traditional nine-month schools must receive their final evaluation by April 1st. Probationary teachers who teach at year-round schools must receive their final evaluation by July 1st. Post-probationary teachers must be evaluated at least once a year pursuant to Nevada law. However, pursuant to School District Regulation 4322, post-probationary teachers must receive evaluations by April 15th. Because of these deadlines, most teachers just received their evaluations and have questions about what action can be taken due to an unfavorable evaluation. There are three options when considering how an unfavorable evaluation should be addressed: 1) do nothing; 2) write a response; and 3) grieve the evaluation.

Evaluations are a permanent part of teachers’ personnel files. Pursuant to Nevada law, teachers have a right to respond to the evaluation and said response is permanently attached to said evaluation. The response gives teachers an opportunity to provide their view of the evaluation. This option may be recommended if for example, a teacher received a disciplinary document during the evaluation period, but that document was not grieved or appealed. It may also be an option because there are no violations of the collective bargaining agreement or District policies and regulations. Significantly, teachers have thirty (30) working days to submit a response.

An evaluation may be grieved for various reasons. The most common is that the underlying facts are in dispute. For example, the evaluation is based upon a disciplinary document that is being grieved or appealed itself because the facts are incorrect—i.e. teacher receives an admonition for cursing at a student. There are other teachers present that state that that is not what occurred. The admonition is being grieved because of the facts. The evaluation may also be grieved because it is relying on the same “untrue” facts. Another frequent basis for grieving an evaluation is violation of the twenty-day rule. Article 36-12 and Article 14-3-1 of the Agreement provide that, “Any behavior that results in an unsatisfactory written evaluation or direction for change must be called to the employee’s attention in writing within twenty (20) working days after the observation.” The purpose of this article is to ensure that teachers receive notice in writing of any deficiency prior to receiving the evaluation and in a timely manner. It also permits time to improve.

On this page we are including a great checklist for analyzing evaluations. Take time to read through the information so that you can make an informed decision about the best way to address your evaluation.