Resource Consultant Role:
Hiring, Evaluation, Professional Development & Termination

Summary of the current DRAFT proposal
September 12, 2006

Proposed Timeline: To approve these policies by October 2006 and start working with the new policies as soon as possible.

Resource Consultant Hiring and Professional Development
1. A set of skills important to success as a resource consultant will be developed. These skills will be used as criteria for hiring.
2. A method for evaluating these skills will be established.
3. Each RC will work with an RC of their own and develop a learning plan for developing the above skills.
4. Ongoing RC trainings will be conducted with the intent of furthering these skills.
5. Resource Consultants who demonstrate a certain level of mastery of these skills will be defined as ‘highly qualified.’

Resource Consultant Evaluation
Each RC will have four means for receiving feedback on their job performance:
1. The skills assessment outlined above.
2. Working with their own RC and learning plan as described above.
3. A strong, agreement-based due process system (see Governance Proposal).
a. Every RC, indeed, every Vision employee, will be required to have a strong, working agreement with each group that they work with. For an RC, these agreements will be (i) with each family and student, (ii) with the RC group, and (iii) with the staff and director.
b. The quality of these agreements will be evaluated and ensured by a personnel committee.
c. Agreements must be treated with full integrity. Any deviation will lead to immediate enactment of due process.
4. An annual, anonymous, confidence/no-confidence vote from the people with whom the RC is in agreements. The specific question could be: “Do you feel that this person is excelling at his or her job? Yes or No.” A pre-determined formula for interpretation of results and consequences will exist (see draft evaluation form).

Resource Consultant Termination
An RC may be terminated (or not rehired) if:
1. Employment agreements expire and it is not possible to reach the new agreements (via due process) required for re-employment.
2. The results of the no-confidence vote are at or below 30% confidence or at or below 70% confidence if the RC is on probation.
3. The RC breaks an agreement or law, and it is not resolvable through due process.

Attachments (all drafts):
RC Operating Principles,
RC Skills
Evaluation Process
Evaluation Questionnaire

Resource Consultant Operating Principals

The role of the Resource Consultant is paramount in the learning Plan team’s challenge to create, implement, and review an appropriate learning plan for every individual participating in the Vision-HCP program. The Resource Consultant will be a trained support person for the students as well as a liaison between the student, parents and Vision HCP staff.

This set operating principals will be utilized when working with the learning plan team to create, implement, review, and re-create individualized learning plans.

v The integrity of the process is the number one priority of the Resource Consultant.
v Agreements/choices will be made using the consensus decision-making model set forth in the Governance Agreement.
v The primary format of the Resource Consultant’s work will be questioning.
v There is no pre-conceived set of, ‘right responses.”
v All agreements that result from use of the process(es) with integrity are good agreements.
v Agreements will be continuously monitored and reviewed to determine if “a new map” needs to be drawn.
v The Resource Consultant will accept the responsibility for:

o Having the skill to assure that the family has access to intellect.
o Having the skill to help consider the “history’ of learning activities being considered.”
o Having the skill to assist families in the discovery and acquisition of resources needed to effectively implement learning activities.
o Having the skill to assure that the Learning Plan will meet the essential requirements needed for funding.



IMPORTANT SKILLS FOR RESOURCE CONSULTANTS:

It is possible to make many lists of important skills. See two lists below. Such lists can be helpful. They can also be dangerous and easily abused. It might be an abuse, for example, in insist that every RC have every one of these skills. It is analogous to dictating that every student have the same curriculum and end up with the exact same skills.

Yet we want our resource consultants to be skilled—what is the solution? I suggest that the all of the skill lists be but guidance and support for the skill of mastering the learning plan cycle. This means that the RC be able to make his own skill list that is both meaningful to him and to the outside world, find a meaningful way to evaluate his own skill levels (incorporating outside input), make a learning plan for improving the skills that seem most important, act, learn, reflect, and continue the cycle. We assess the resource consultant’s ability to do this by assessing the depth and integrity of the learning plan over time.

List #1:

Ø The art and science of asking questions
Ø Ability to facilitate quality agreements
Ø Ability to facilitate the learning plan cycle
Ø Ability to observe for learning
Ø Understanding of and facilitation of Vision HCP due process
Ø Facilitation of consensus decision-making
Ø Abides by RC operating principles
Ø Able to access learning resources
Ø Understanding of and participation in Vision HCP governance.
Ø Make and follow a learning plan and agreements for oneself.
Ø Ability to translate individualized learning into traditional education speak.


List #2 Compiled by Celeste, Claire, Dev, Diane, Sheila, Theana and Victoria, June 15th 2004, VLC “Pioneer Team.” They have specifically not been arranged in any particular order.

· Listens well. Openness to learning. Pays attention. Aware. Notices.
· Compassion for kids. Loves and delights in others.
· Documentation is useful, meaningful, fun, and models inspirational documentation.
· Communication. Language Skills. Speaks the truth in affirming manner.
· Mediation. Conflict Resolution. Emotional Processing.
· Enthusiasm. Playful. Willing to risk. Adventure.
· Willing to ask for help or to not know. Willing to trust, surrender and have faith in others or in the process.
· Integrity. Keeps Agreements. Holds Confidence. Responsibility.
· Self Aware. Focus on personal growth. Acknowledges personal experience and able to share and grow in a group.
· Humor. Flexibility. Open to Change. Questioning. Evaluating.
· Be a learner. Egalitarian. Be part of the group while facilitating and ideally, working oneself out of a job.
· Internalization of Vision Mission, Principles, and Philosophy.
· Understanding of Learning. Can facilitate, model, celebrate, plan for, document, reflect on, find strategies and mentors.
· Knowledge and personal experience of group dynamics, possibilities, and techniques.
· Facilitate creative tension. Identify and question ideals, reality, motivation...


Evaluation Ballot (aka annual confidence/no confidence vote)
Draft 9/9/06


The following question is being asked of every person with whom the Vision employee being evaluated had a working agreement at or near the beginning of the school year. The intent of this evaluation is to see the big picture of whether this Vision employee is excelling at his or her job. It is in all of our best interest to have employees who do excel.

Your response will be anonymous to everybody except the person on the personnel committee whose job it is to make sure that all the right people were surveyed. Your answer of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will be tallied with the other responses, and all anybody else on the committee will hear is the total and percentage of each answer. The employee will only hear one of three possible responses:
1. 70% or more people surveyed thought you were excelling at your job; therefore you are rehired.
2. 30% or less people surveyed thought you were excelling at your job; therefore you are not rehired.
3. Between 30 and 70% of the people surveyed thought you were excelling at your job. Therefore, we would like you to go to all people surveyed and ask for feedback on your job performance and then incorporate their feedback with your own self-evaluation into a personal learning plan. You are on probation and must get a score above 70% the following year in order to be rehired.

To help you answer the final question, we first give you some other questions to help you think about whether the employee is excelling.

1. Does this person treat their agreements with integrity?
2. When you first see this person, do you think ‘oh good’ or ‘oh no’?
3. Does this person help you to be closer to knowing or moving towards what matters most to you, or are they a distraction to it
4. Does this person do things for you that you couldn’t do better yourself?
5. If the employee gave notice today, would your first reaction be worry at how you would replace them or would it be relief?
6. Is this person eager to learn how they could personally grow and do a better job?
7. Does this person take responsibility for their mistakes?

Here is the big question we would like the answer to. Please be honest and answer only for your own relationship with the person. You can trust others to do the same for their relationship.


Do you believe that this person is excelling at their job? Yes No
Please circle one answer. Thank you.



Summary of Vision HCP Evaluation
Draft 9/9/06

Every employee within Vision HCP would have three methods for receiving feedback and for being evaluated.
1. Ongoing due process. Agreements are made with everybody that the employee works with, and these agreements are of a certain quality and in line with written job guidelines. These agreements are approved annually by a third party, which is then empowered to enter into a job contract/agreement). It is expected that all agreements are living documents and treated with integrity. Any deviation from this leads immediately to due process. Any party who lacks an approved agreement that is inherent in their job description is effectively ‘on probation’ until either a new and improved agreement is in place or the two parties agree to part ways.
a. For an RC. There are agreements with families and students, with RC group, with director and staff. Approved by personnel committee.
b. For a program director. There are agreements with staff, with RC group, with other program directors and coordinating director. All approved by stewards.
c. For a coordinating director. Agreements with program directors and with school district. Approved by stewards.
d. For a staff. Agreements with other staff and director. Approved by RC group.
e. For stewards. Agreements with other stewards, with program directors and coordinating director, with nominating/personnel committee. Approved by membership.
f. For students and families (not employees but still applies). Agreements with educators, with RC. Approved by learning plan accountability committee.

2. Their own individualized learning plan completed in conjunction with the employee’s RC. The learning plan identifies what skills are important to further develop in order to better do their job. Resource consultants (and hopefully other employees as well) will have received guidance and feedback on what skills are important and where their skill levels are at. The RC for employees will be chosen by the employee but there might be some guidance around this.

3. An annual and anonymous vote of confidence/no confidence from the people in which the employee is in working agreements (this includes those who approved the process). The voting process will be conducted by a committee (personnel?) a few months before the end of the contract year. The committee will mail the confidence/no confidence questions to everybody who was linked directly by an agreement with the person being evaluated at the beginning of the year (each person will have a contact list for these people in their learning plan). .If no reply comes in writing, the parties will be called. The voting for stewards could happen at the annual all-membership meeting. All employees agree to abide by the consequences of this vote (see draft ballot for details) in their contracts.