Austin Public Schools is adding to the way it evaluates teachers.

A committee of staff and administrators presented a new form of teacher evaluation to the Austin Public Schools board Monday in part to keep up with 2011 teacher evaluation mandates. Though the district already has teacher evaluations in place, the new component, which allows teachers to set their own classroom goals with administration review and approval, is expected to start next fall once the board formally approves the process next month.

“We wanted to make sure it was very comprehensive and inclusive,” Woodson Kindergarten Center Principal Jessica Cabeen said.

A group of Austin schools staff came together last April to look at various models for teacher evaluation to satisfy 2011 teacher evaluation mandates from the Minnesota Legislature, which added more to teacher evaluations and required 35 percent of a teacher’s evaluation to be ranked based on his or her students’ performance on state comprehensive testing. Teachers must also be reviewed on a three-year performance cycle at minimum under state rules, but district officials say most if not all teachers come under review each year.

The committee decided to borrow a Wisconsin schools model which allowed teachers to create benchmarks for themselves while instilling checks to make sure teachers were kept accountable. The result is the district’s Individual Growth and Development Plans, or IGDP, which teachers fill out and then must discuss with their building administrators, who must approve the IGDP before it takes effect.

“That’s what we really liked about it,” said Southgate teacher Erin Schoen. “We were excited to create our own goal and share it with our administrator, and then decide if that was a goal worth keeping.”

Teachers will review their plans throughout the year with administrators to ensure they’re working toward their goals. Teachers must also observe each other in the classroom and go through an annual peer review process, where they would speak to another tenured teacher of their choosing in a confidential conversation about their work.

The Austin Education Association overwhelmingly approved the addition to teacher evaluations in December, with at least 95 percent of teachers in favor of the new plan, according to the committee.

Austin Superintendent David Krenz called the new plan a better fit for Austin than the suggested state model.

“If you look at the state model, it’s punitive,” he said. “We’ve had a good model in place, and this looks to be a good model.”