School evaluations of teachers are currently not made public. But a former school board member in New Milford wants to change that, and has taken the issue to the state's Freedom of Information Commission.
John Spatola wants to know how New Milford teachers are performing. But there's a problem. The school district doesn't want to tell him. Right now, state law says it doesn't have to, according to attorneys for the teachers and the district.
But Spatola disagrees.
"The budget is our responsibility, and the children of New Milford are our responsibility," Spatola said at a commission hearing last month.
Spatola said he doesn't want to know how individual teachers are doing, but he wants to see big-picture data about the entire district.
Teachers are evaluated by an administrator based on their classroom performance. The state uses this information to figure out how well schools and districts are performing.
Spatola said that if the school board knew how well teachers were performing, it would help them decide how much money to spend on professional development.
But lawyers for the district and the teachers union said that this information could violate the teachers' right to privacy.
State law says that all records related to teacher evaluations should be kept private. But Mark Bowman, the lawyer for Spatola, the New Milford school bard member, said that taxpayers have a right to know how well teachers are performing overall.
"I think this is a different situation," Bowman said. "We are looking at an evaluation of a school system as a whole, not as a teacher."
Spatola resigned from the school board so he could pursue this complaint.
The FOI Commission is scheduled to rule on the matter early next year.