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District Overview & Description
North Mason Team Interviews
Introduction and Context
Information to Know Before Reviewing Our Model
Contact Information
View the TPEP Vision Statement & NMSD Model

District Overview & Description

North Mason Public School District serves about 2,200 students each year through its six schools, which include two elementary schools, one middle school, one high school, one options high school, and one Homelink program. Located in rural Washington at the eastern tip of the Hood Canal, North Mason is a primarily Caucasian school district with the following demographics:

  • 2.97 percent of North Mason students are American Indian or Alaskan Native.
  • 1.67 percent are Asian or Pacific Islander.
  • 1.26 percent are African American.
  • 6.96 percent are Hispanic.
  • 45.8 percent are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.
Number of principals in pilot: 5
Number of assistant principals in pilot: 2
Number of classroom teachers in pilot: 30 +
Number of district administrators evaluating participating principals: 2


North Mason Team Interviews

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Introduction and Context

During negotiations in June, 2009, the North Mason Education Association and the North Mason School District agreed to form a joint task force to review the teacher evaluation process. During the following year this task force read a wide range of research, studied Charlotte Danielson’s Teacher Evaluation to Enhance Professional Practice and, very importantly, created a philosophy statement, upon which we based our work.

Our Philosophy
The North Mason School District Evaluation Task Force believes that the evaluation process will:

  • Foster a working culture that promotes greatness and a climate of trust
  • Support and celebrate professional growth and development as well as
    encourage teacher self-reflection and goal setting
  • Have explicit standards with a clear rubric that is appropriate to all grades and
    content areas
  • Use multiple sources of information as evidence of instructional mastery
  • Be a “Natural Harvest,” manageable and realistic.

The task force continued that year by developing a list of the “What” gets measured and a description of “How” the process would work. From there, rubrics were drafted. At the same time, teachers and administrators were developing a district instructional model, which was regularly studied by the task force to ensure that the evaluation system and instructional model were well aligned in both language and description.
For the 2010-2011 school year, NMSD was named as one of the pilot districts for the TPEP project. With the support of OSPI and partner organizations, the task force worked to align the district’s developing rubrics with the state eight criteria, began developing the principal rubric and implemented two rounds of teacher observations with 16 pilot teachers and 7 administrative evaluators. Task Force co-chairs also provided information to various stakeholders and sought their input.

As North Mason gears up for the 2011-2012 school year, there are plans to pilot the most recent comprehensive teacher evaluation system with 25% of the teaching force.

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Information to Know Before Reviewing Our Model

The North Mason Education Association and the North Mason School District have completed the first year of piloting the Teacher Evaluation system, and are embarking on year two of the pilot. The task force is currently working on refining the evaluation documents and clearly defining exactly how the new system and the tools will be used for both the teacher and principal pilots in the upcoming school year.

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Contact Information

Contacts for North Mason School District:

  • Thom Worlund, Hawkins Middle School Principal, TPEP Task Force Co-Chair, North Mason School District, (360) 277-2302; .
  • Vicki Hopkins, NMEA President, Sand Hill Elementary School, North Mason
    School District, (360) 277-2387;
  • Tonya Beattie, Program Assistant, North Mason School District, (360) 277-2300;




View the vision page and pilot models.

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