Evaluating school social workers with the Danielson Framework

A school social worker handles attendance and truancy, family engagement, connections to community resources, mandated reporting and crisis response, often for the students with the least stable circumstances in the building.

The work is largely invisible to a classroom observation, and much of it cannot be watched at all without breaching confidentiality.

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 casework, family engagement and resource coordination
• Evidence can be recorded without exposing confidential student detail
• Attendance and intervention outcomes are part of the evaluation record
• Crisis and after-hours response is visible rather than 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 Social Work Practice
• 1b Setting Goals for the Social Work Program
• 1c Knowing Regulations and Guidelines
• 1d Using Resources Effectively
• 1e Planning a Coherent Social Work Program
• 1f Designing Program Evaluation

Learning Environment

• 2a Cultivating Respectful and Affirming Environments
• 2b Organizing Time Effectively
• 2c Maintaining Clear Procedures for Referrals
• 2d Supporting Positive Student Behavior
• 2e Organizing Spaces for Student Support

Social Work Practice

• 3a Assessing Student Social-Emotional and Behavioral Needs
• 3b Supporting Academic, Behavioral, and Social-Emotional Planning
• 3c Engaging Families and Community to Support Students
• 3d Documenting Student Progress and Writing Reports
• 3e Responding Flexibly to Student Needs

Principled Practice

• 4a Engaging in Reflective Practice
• 4b Maintaining Accurate Records and Documentation
• 4c Engaging Families and Communities
• 4d Contributing to School Community and Culture
• 4e Growing and Developing Professionally
• 4f Acting in Service of Students

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 casework and family engagement, recorded without exposing confidential detail. 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 school social workers this year?

Tell us how your social workers are evaluated today, and we will show you how casework and family engagement are recorded without exposing confidential detail. If we are not the right fit for your district, we will tell you that too. Talk with us about school social worker evaluation →