LANGLEY — Students in South Whidbey schools aren’t the only ones who will be scrutinized this year.

Teachers and principals across the district will participate in a state-funded evaluation pilot program. Superintendent Jo Moccia announced the school district won a grant to study at least two evaluation systems.

“We’re thrilled,” Moccia said.

“We put it together with teachers in partnership and we couldn’t be happier,” she said.

As a pilot program, the leaders in the district will provide input on the evaluations to the state superintendent’s office.

School districts in Washington will be required to have an evaluation system by the 2013-2014 school year. It’s a reform of previous reviews that categorized teachers and principals as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Grant funds of $100,000 from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction will go to the Northwest Educational Service District, and then be distributed to the other school districts that were awarded the pilot program.

While some teachers unions across the country and state have resisted evaluations, South Whidbey’s union worked with the school district on the application. The South Whidbey Education Association, the local teachers union, jointly filed the application in September.

“We are hopeful this opportunity to work together affords the kind of collaboration between teachers and administration we have not seen for many years,” said union co-presidents Jan McNeely and Val Brown.

“We look forward to being a partner in this process,” they added. “We hope the process results in a fair evaluation that fosters and encourages excellence in teaching and supports professional growth.”

Collaboration was important to the district’s new leader, too. Moccia began as the superintendent in July and made cooperating with the teachers union a priority, which she said was at least a part of the reason the union agreed to the evaluation.

“I think it has a lot to do with the fact the teachers are giving new leadership the opportunity to make good on its promise,” Moccia said. “We’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll be able to do this in a very collaborative way.”

The grant allows South Whidbey to choose from three options. Details of how the evaluations will work were not known, but Moccia said all are based on four-tier evaluations.

For example, the Danielson evaluation reviews teachers on distinguished, proficient, basic or unsatisfactory lessons, as opposed to the previous rating as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

Moccia is familiar with the Danielson model from her previous position as superintendent of Averill Park Central School District in New York.

“South Whidbey adopted something similar, but not with all of the components,” Moccia said. “I have not looked in-depth at the Marzano or University of Washington models, but from what I understand they’re fairly similar.”

The frequency of the teacher and principal reviews will be negotiated between the district after the pilot program ends.

How the principals’ evaluations work was also unknown.