
FTEM as Your Instructional Catalyst: Leveraging the Focused Teacher Evaluation Model to Accelerate Student Achievement
School and district leaders are invited to discover how the Focused Teacher Evaluation Model (FTEM) can become the driving force behind meaningful gains in student achievement. In this session, you’ll learn practical,strategies that elevate FTEM from an evaluation tool to your school’s ultimate instructional model. Participants will explore simple, actionable initiatives that increase daily rigor, strengthen instructional consistency, and build a shared understanding of high-quality teaching across classrooms. Through real examples and leader-friendly tools, you’ll see how FTEM can unify instructional priorities and accelerate growth for both teachers and students.

Debra Friedman
Following a rewarding 30-year career in public education, Debra is honored to be a highly requested educational consultant providing services including staff developer, trainer, administrative leadership coach and faculty coach since 2018. She holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the State University of New York at Geneseo, and a master’s degree in leadership from Nova Southeastern University, Florida. She is privileged to have worked with a wide variety of schools from all socio-economic ranges in urban, suburban, and rural communities. Debra has served as a teacher, reading specialist, assistant principal, and principal, as well as director of program development and alignment for one of the nation’s largest school districts, where she was in charge of the district’s professional development center, a multi-million dollar training grant, and on-line professional development programs providing teacher enhancement and certification courses.
Under her leadership as a principal and through the hard work of committed teachers who embraced Dr. Marzano’s teacher evaluation model, her school rose from one of the state’s 300 lowest-performing schools to scoring in the top 10% in reading. This experience combined with her love of children and learning is the foundation of her strong commitment to supporting schools in their quest to improve student achievement.
Session Details
Audience: Teacher , Instructional Coach
Difficulty Level: Intermediate/Advanced