Teacher Effectiveness

Florida District Adopts Talent Management

• By Scott Aronowitz
• 05/18/10

Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) of Tampa, FL is looking to boost teacher effectiveness by establishing measurable performance indicators for faculty. As part of the effort, the district has announced its plans to roll out the Lawson Talent Management (LTM) suite of software applications.

With more than 190,000 students in 248 schools and learning centers, HCPS is one of the 10 largest districts in the United States and is currently following its own seven-year plan aimed at ensuring that there is a high-quality teacher in every one of its classrooms. David Steele, chief information and technology officer for the district, said the implementation of the LTM applications is an important step toward reaching this goal.

"We ultimately want to improve student achievement and teacher effectiveness across all grade levels with the help of technology," Steele said. "Our goal is to have 90 percent of our students graduate ready for college or a career. We believe that Lawson Talent Management will assist us in reaching this goal by helping establish measurable teacher performance indicators. It can also help us address high attrition among our newer teachers, and improve overall compensation, recruitment, professional development and HR administration processes."

The district's agreement with Lawson, funded with grant money from the Gates Foundation and finalized in early 2010, includes the deployment of several LTM modules, including:

• Global Human Resources, which manages core HR processes, including employee records and payroll;
• Talent Acquisition, which identifies high-quality talent for potential employment;
• Compensation Management, wich builds on existing compensation structures to create a more efficient and modern pay and progress model;
• Performance Management, which helps assess teacher competency against job profiles to identify and support top performers;
• Learning and Development Management, which includes tools to design training plans and manage teachers' professional development; and
• Succession Management, which addresses attrition rates, identifies teachers at risk for leaving, and helps locate successors with the required skills and competencies.