At each Baltimore County Board of Education meeting, CASE has three minutes to present information to the board in the interest of our organization. The following is a transcript from one of those meetings.

Chairman Gilliss, Vice Chair Stewart, Superintendent White, and members of the Board.

The Peer Assistance and Review (PAR program) is a highly successful program partnered by TABCO, CASE, and Baltimore County Public School’s HR department.

The PAR program provides peer assistance for beginning teachers, teachers new to BCPS, or recommended tenured teachers.

Experienced “Consulting Teachers” provide individualized support to identified “Client Teachers” with a focus on the four domains of professional practice as identified in the BCPS Framework for teaching and reflected in the BCPS teacher evaluation.

The support given to teachers includes: Observation, Mentoring, Coaching, Co-planning, Co-teaching, Providing resources, Collaboration, and data-driven feedback.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the mid-year Summative Oral Report session, which provided the opportunity for consulting teachers to share a summary of gathered data and supports for their most at-risk clients. This also provided the opportunity for a larger selection of PAR Panel members to review documents and ask questions about gathered data, past supports, and next steps.

As I listened to the Consulting Teachers share data about the new teachers who were not progressing as well as they should, in most cases, the word “inconsistent” was used. Inconsistent planning, inconsistent classroom management, inconsistent student engagement, and so on…

Consistency of effective practice is the foundation of success in the classroom.

The same can be said about success in sports, business, or leading a school district.

As Benjamin Disraeli said: “The secret to success is the consistency of purpose.”

Despite the swirling political turmoil, BCPS maintains consistency of purpose.

Thank you,

Tom DeHart
Executive Director, CASE