Project Idaho: State Board of Education responds to 'Master Educator Premium' concerns

BOISE, Idaho (CBS 2) — The State Board of Education is responding to questions over the "Master Educator Premium" Program.

Around 1,400 Idaho educators submitted a portfolio to apply for the "Master Educator Premium". It's a bonus for Idaho's top-performing veteran educators. Last month 1,226 teachers and pupil services staff found out they would be receiving the premium.

Earlier this week CBS 2 talked to long-time educator Sarah Pelayo. She applied for the program but was rejected and she expressed some concerns about the process.

CBS 2 News reached out to the State Board of Education to ask about the training evaluators went though prior to grading portfolios, as well as what was done to avoid bias.

Spokesperson Mike Keckler responded by email saying:

"The Master Educator Premium trainings occurred throughout the state and the trainings were all the same. There may have been questions raised at some trainings that were not raised at others but the actual training and the materials used were the same," Keckler said in the email.

When it comes to confidentiality, initially the State Board said identifying information would be removed from each portfolio.

"Each evaluator signed a non-disclosure agreement prior to being assigned any evaluations. We also hired temporary staff to help redact educator names and any identifiable student information. Due to the way many of the portfolios were put together, it was not possible to redact all identifying information. Because we knew this was a possibility, we required the non-disclosure agreements," Keckler said in the email. "Also, portfolios were assigned to evaluators that do not live in the same region as the submitter. If individuals evaluated portfolios for individuals they knew, they clearly violated their signed agreement with the Board. If they were able to identify who an educator was through the evaluation of the portfolio and then shared that information after the fact, then they violated their confidentiality agreement."

Keckler says evaluators had an average of two to four weeks to complete evaluations depending on whether or not they were one of the two original evaluators or a third evaluator assigned due to discrepancies.

Pelayo said she was concerned over the amount of time evaluators spent looking at her work. It appeared that one evaluator spent about three hours looking at her portfolio while another spent just eight minutes.

Keckler said that's not necessarily the case. He said that the start time indicated when an evaluator logged in and the completion time indicated when they logged out.

"We sent educators the comments about their portfolios, which came from a master spreadsheet, which included information that indicated the time an individuals was logged into the system. The date and time on the spreadsheet download out of the system used for distributing the portfolios was not representative of the time the evaluator spent on the review. Evaluators were able to download the portfolios and review them on their computer. The majority of the evaluators did not review the information while logged into the system."

Because of this, it's not clear from that spreadsheet how much time any of the three evaluators spent grading Pelayo's portfolio.

One of Pelayo's evaluators stated there was an issue opening a video she attached.

"Two of my evaluators gave me full points on it and one of them did not and stated that they couldn't open my artifact which was a video," Pelayo said.

Keckler says all evaluators were instructed to contact the State Board immediately if they could not open any of the artifacts.

"If the problem couldn’t be solved, the portfolio was assigned to a different reviewer who could open the artifacts," Keckler said in the email.

In some of the sections, Pelayo received smiley faces instead of comments on her work.

"Evaluators were instructed to provide meaningful comments, particularly for those that did not meet the individual standards, and that they comments should identify where they could make improvements should they choose to reapply in the future," Keckler said in the email. "It is unfortunate that some evaluators did not do this. Most of them did and they told us they learned a lot from the experience in terms of what other educators are doing throughout the state."

He says the State Board of Education is conducting a review of the first year of the process and intend to take what we have learned and make improvements next year.