Evaluating instructional specialists and coaches with the Danielson Framework

An instructional specialist teaches adults, not children. The day is coaching cycles, modeling lessons, designing professional development, analyzing data with teams and building trust with colleagues who are peers rather than students.

Coaching also depends on being non-evaluative with the teachers being coached, which makes evaluating the coach on classroom instruction both inaccurate and awkward.

What we provide

A rubric written for this role on the same four-domain structure your administrators already use, in both the 2013 and 2022 editions.

• Components describe adult learning and coaching practice
• Modeled lessons are evidence of coaching, not of the coach own teaching load
• Professional development design and facilitation are visible in the rubric
• Data team facilitation counts rather than going unrecorded

The rubric derives from Danielson consulting work published by state education agencies. The 2022 edition is our own.

The 2022 rubric at a glance

22 components across 4 domains, written for this role rather than borrowed from the classroom teacher rubric.

Planning and Preparation

• 1a Applying Knowledge of Instructional Practice and Professional Learning
• 1b Knowing the School's Program and Teachers
• 1c Setting Goals for the Instructional Support Program
• 1d Using Resources Effectively
• 1e Planning a Coherent Support Program
• 1f Designing and Analyzing Program Evaluation

Learning Environment

• 2a Cultivating Trust and Affirming Relationships
• 2b Fostering a Culture of Instructional Improvement
• 2c Establishing Procedures for Access to Support
• 2d Maintaining Norms of Professional Interaction
• 2e Organizing Spaces for Professional Learning

Learning Experiences

• 3a Collaborating in Lesson Design
• 3b Engaging Teachers in New Instructional Practices
• 3c Sharing Expertise with Staff
• 3d Locating Resources for Teacher Growth
• 3e Responding Flexibly to Teacher Needs

Principled Practice

• 4a Engaging in Reflective Practice
• 4b Preparing Budgets and Reports
• 4c Coordinating with Other Instructional Specialists
• 4d Contributing to School Community and Culture
• 4e Growing and Developing Professionally
• 4f Acting in Service of Students and Teachers

Each component carries level-of-performance descriptors in all four levels, written in first, second and third person so self-assessments and evaluations read correctly from the same source. Ask us for the full rubric and we will walk you through it.

More than the rubric

Evidence can come from coaching cycles, modeled lessons and professional development you facilitated. The rubric is not a document you print and fill in. It is built into software that runs the whole cycle: observations scheduled and recorded, rubric language inserted into the evaluation for you, self assessments and professional development plans running against the same rubric, and district reporting at the end of the year.

Plenty of districts already have the right rubric sitting in a filing cabinet. The work is in running the cycle with it. See how the software works → See the other 13 roles

Evaluating instructional coaches this year?

Tell us how coaching is structured in your district, and we will show you how the rubric keeps the coaching relationship non-evaluative while still evaluating the coach. If we are not the right fit for your district, we will tell you that too. Talk with us about instructional coach evaluation →