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Hello, we are receiving a number of requests related to the high impact teacher notification letters sent to teachers around the state. Based on the questions we are receiving, we thought it might be helpful to put up a blog post to answer some frequently asked questions.

  • First, the selection criteria for Florida’s best teachers, as we highlight on this website, and the high impact teachers is similar, but different. Simply put our, our criteria for a best teacher  is to be in the top 30% statewide based on Aggregate VAM (if available) scores in either ELA or Math.
  • High impact teachers are selected by the DOE based on VAM scores as set out in  Florida Adminstrative Rule 6A-5.0411 Calculations of Student Learning Growth for Use in School Personnel Evaluations. If you are reading the rule, look for the definition of  “highly effective” since that is the rule term that covers the high impact teachers.
  • High impact teachers are supposed to be highly effective in both subjects if they teach both subjects, but we allow you on our list if you are in the top 30% on one subject
  • Last year, 19.5% percent of teachers with a VAM score were classed by the DOE as high impact teachers.
  • This means most high impact teachers are on our list of best teachers, but not all of the teachers on out list are high impact teachers. Our list has about 1/3 more teachers.
  • If you received a high impact letter and are not on our list, the normal reason for that is that your information is somehow coded confidential, you are married to law enforcement, etc., and the DOE did not provide us your VAM data.
  • We do not send out high impact letters, only the DOE does, so we can not help you with that.
  • We have asked the DOE for the most recent High Impact Teacher List and plan to make it available online when we receive it.
  • Finally, if you are listed with the incorrect school or wrong subject in our online database, we are sorry, but that listing is based on the incorrect data your school and district provided to the DOE and we cannot correct individual listings. You have to make sure your school correctly reports your data to the DOE so that the DOE database is accurate.