May, 26, 2016

Dear Tri-State Visiting Team Members:

On behalf of the Mamaroneck Board of Education, faculty, parents, and students, I thank you for sharing your time and effort to help us examine how our commitment to professional dialogue and feedback serves to enhance teaching and learning in our school system. We welcome this invaluable opportunity to share practices, reflect on our journey, and consider recommendations for critical next steps that will help us align our purposes, efforts, and desired outcomes.

In keeping with Shulman (1998), we believe that teaching is a profession and that "great teachers are made not born." In 2007, we revived the district's partnership with Dr. Jon Saphier and Research for Better Teaching to explore the tenets of the Skillful Teacher model as a means to develop a shared understanding of instructional practices that improve student learning. In 2011, encouraged by Hattie's (2007) research on the impact of effective feedback on learning and driven by an interest in revisiting supervision practices, district administrators read Kim Marshall's Rethinking Teacher Supervision and Evaluation and brought Kim Marshall to Mamaroneck for a series of workshops. In collaboration with faculty, we moved forward to establish a new evaluation system comprising unannounced mini-observations coupled with oral and written feedback.

Now, with the help of our Tri-State partners, we hope to reflect on the impact of our investment in frequent observations and timely feedback and consider next steps guided by the consortium's consultancy model. During the visit, you will have an opportunity to review an extensive collection of digitized artifacts of our supervisory process. Please bring your preferred electronic device (laptop, iPad, etc.) to use in our BYOD wireless environment. If you would like us to supply a laptop for you, please email Annie Ward, Assistant Superintendent for C&I, at award@mamkschools.org.

Committee headquarters during the visit will be the Mamaroneck High School library classroom (third floor of MHS directly above the main entrance). Please join us for breakfast on Wednesday, June lst at 8:30 a.m. We have reserved parking spaces for team members in the MRS main parking lot: 1000 West Boston Post Road, Mamaroneck, NY 10543. If you have any difficulty, please contact Mary Ann Apoldo at (914) 220-3009 or Joanne Rice at (914) 220-3007.

Enjoy the long weekend! We look forward to seeing you next week.

Respctfully,
Robert L. Shaps, Ed. D.
Superintendent of Schools