Everything has its time. Back when Palm Pilot technology was the rage, three of us developed an idea to use Palms to ease the demands of classroom observations. At the time, we thought our membership would be so taken by the efficiency of our observation program that principals would join the Association just to have free access. We were wrong…well, not totally. We had the right concept, just the wrong platform and wrong time. A few MASSP members who tried GoObserve back in the early 2000’s are still using it today and love it, but change is continual.

I am waiting for the press releases to be published to make it official, but our Association just accomplished a big win.

This week, MASSP went into partnership with the Dallas, Texas firm GoKnow to update and improve MASSP's observation software, GoObserve. MASSP has committed $50,000 to this project.

In six weeks from the Aug. 16th signing of the contract - October 1st, GoObserve will be available on iPads. Three weeks after, it will be available on Android-based tablets.

This past Thursday over 300 people attended MASSP's Effective Evaluation conference. Wow, Lisa Swem did a great job reviewing and giving background to the recently enacted Tenure bills! Lisa started the information update at 9 a.m and didn't stop until 3 p.m. And she spent the next hour answering questions!

It’s happened…we got what we asked for – Public Acts 100, 101,102, and 103 of 2011. The scale has now tipped to the management side regarding supervision of instructional staff, and now we are all to be judged on job performance.

I have three fears for our members in this new world for the supervision of instructional providers:

Fear One
The door has opened for the possible abuse of employees – including you.