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One connected cycle, not five disconnected tasksObservations, evaluations, self-assessments and professional development plans run in one system, on one calendar, against one set of rubrics.
An administrator writes observation notes tagged to rubric components. Those notes surface automatically inside the summative months later, already attached to the component they belong to. The teacher sees feedback while it still matters rather than in June. Nobody retypes anything and nobody goes looking for last spring paper notes.
Every role in the district runs the same cycle, so district reporting comes out as one picture rather than a stack of separate ones.
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Three kinds of formative observation, because not everything worth recording is a scheduled lesson.
Formal observations include a pre-observation planning form and lesson plan artifact upload, plus a post-observation reflection form your district can customize. The observer takes notes component by component, so evidence is filed as it is written rather than sorted out afterwards.
Classroom walkthroughs are quick drop-in notes, usually against Domains 2 and 3.
General observations record work outside the classroom, such as committee participation or back-to-school night, which is where much of Domains 1 and 4 actually happens.
Observations can be recorded on an iPad in the room rather than transcribed later, and observation transcripts can be aligned directly to rubric evidence.
Run as many or as few as your policy requires. The system follows your procedures rather than imposing its own.
Formative evaluations for mid-year review, summative evaluations for year end.
Select a level of performance by component, and the matching rubric language is inserted for you, with pronouns matched to the staff member record. No hand-copying rubric text into a Word document and no reformatting afterwards.
Observation notes recorded against a component appear inline with that component while you write, so the evidence is in front of you instead of in a folder. That is the difference between an evaluation you can defend and one you have to reconstruct.
The Danielson Group publishes a rubric for classroom teachers. Districts have to evaluate everyone else too.
We maintain role-specific rubrics for 14 positions, each in both the 2013 and 2022 editions:
Classroom — Teacher · Special Education Teacher · Career and Technical Educator · Online Educator
Instructional support — Instructional Specialist · Library or Media Specialist · Teacher Consultant for Behavior · Paraprofessional
Student services — School Counselor · School Psychologist · School Social Worker · School Nurse · Therapeutic Specialist
Leadership — Administrator
Every rubric is included for every customer. No per-role pricing, no add-on modules, no separate charge for the 2022 editions.
Rubric language displays inline against each component, and every role follows the same four-domain structure, so an evaluator who can observe a classroom can observe a counseling session without learning a second system.
The Danielson framework has four domains and stops at professional practice. Most states additionally require a student achievement or growth component, which is why districts so often end up with the rubric in one system and the growth calculation in a spreadsheet.
A Student Performance domain is provided for teachers alongside the four Danielson domains, so the whole evaluation lives in one place.
You set the scoring and the weighting. Your district decides how each domain is scored and how much it counts toward the summative. Where a state fixes the split, you match it. Where the state leaves the choice to the district, or where it is a negotiated item, you make it. You are not working around a formula we hardcoded.
Both the 2013 and 2022 editions of the framework are supported, so a district can move between them on its own schedule.
No two districts evaluate the same way, and most of the differences are negotiated rather than chosen. They are settings here, not special requests, so you are not paying for custom work to match an agreement you already signed.
What appears on the evaluation — show or hide numeric scores, level of performance, overall performance, the recommendation, contract status, probation status and parent involvement. Decide whether student performance counts toward the numeric score.
How it is weighted — set the weight of each domain and the student achievement percentage.
Your copy of the rubric — component titles, display numbering and ordering are district-editable, and so is the level-of-performance language itself. It is held in first, second and third person, which is why a self-assessment and an evaluation both read correctly from the same source.
Your forms and your calendar — customize pre-observation and post-observation forms and their questions, the prompt text staff see at each step, PD plan goal types, and how many days before and after an observation the conferences are scheduled.
Sign-off — require a secondary supervisor signature, allow or withhold teacher comments, and set your own acknowledgement wording.
If your negotiated agreement changes, you change a setting. You do not wait for a release.
An evaluation is a document your district may have to stand behind years later, in front of an association representative or a hearing officer. That only works if it still says what it said when it was signed.
When an evaluation is completed it keeps its own copy of what was used: the component names, the rubric language that was inserted, the domain weights and the scores are all stored with the evaluation itself.
So if you later rename a component, re-weight a domain, edit rubric wording or move to a different edition of the framework, past evaluations still show exactly what the staff member was assessed against at the time. Nothing is rewritten retroactively.
History is kept rather than cleared. Prior years stay available for longitudinal reporting, so you can see whether someone is actually progressing rather than only how they were rated this spring.
Self-assessment uses the same rubric the evaluator uses, with rubric language converted to first person. Staff assess themselves against the identical standard they are measured by, which is what makes the follow-up conversation a real one.
Professional development plans follow SMART goal setting. Staff define a goal, tie it to the specific Domain and Component it addresses, then document the resources, activities and timing to get there. Evidence and reflections attach to the goal as the year goes on, and continuing education activity is tracked in the same place.
Because goals are tied to components, a PD plan connects directly to the evidence gathered during observations rather than sitting in a separate document nobody reopens.
The system keeps both sides of the cycle moving without anyone chasing anyone.
Observations — send the full observation or just a notice. Pre-observation conference and post-observation reflection meetings are notified automatically.
Evaluations — notify a staff member that an evaluation is complete, and get notified back when they have digitally signed it.
PD plans and self-assessments — administrators are notified on submission, staff are notified on acceptance.
Tell us how your evaluation cycle runs today, which roles you have to evaluate, and what your state requires. We will show you how it works here and give you a straight answer about fit. If it looks like a match, you can run a free 30-day trial with your own rubrics and staff before committing to anything. If we are not the right system for you, we will tell you that too. Talk with us →