The Connecticut State Department of Education is publishing a bi-weekly column to help school administrators effectively implement the new educator evaluation requirements in their schools and districts. This second installment discusses the process of collecting and “tagging” evidence to facilitate and inform the end-of-the-year summative rating.

As administrators complete their in-class observations and reviews of professional practice, the question of rating teacher performance on the various rubric indicators comes to mind. Simply put: No ratings need to be done for observations and/or reviews as separate events. The purpose of the observation/review is to gather evidence which will eventually lead to a summative rating on the end-of-year documentation for teacher practice.

The process of gathering artifacts and observing practice is designed to allow administrators the opportunity to collect evidence and align it to the rubric indicators after the observation phase has been completed. Labeling (“tagging”) the evidence ensures that the administrator has enough evidence that is representative of the teacher’s performance and is sufficient to support the rating of professional practice for the summative rating at the end of the year.

Observing teacher practice is demanding enough without attempting to assess every indicator within your system’s rubric. Some observations may have the narrow lens of concentrating on the focus areas selected in the fall conference or any focus that the teacher and administrator agreed upon during the pre-conference. Others will yield a great deal of evidence that can be “tagged” to various rubric indicators. However, “tagging” does not imply the assignment of a rating. It is simply categorizing evidence based on the rubric used in your evaluation system. This will allow an administrator to organize the evidence which will contribute to the final rating at the end of the year. In the end-of-year conference, the administrator should discuss with the teacher how the preponderance of evidence points to the rubric ratings associated with professional practice.

So, how do you rate? The answer is not until the end-of-year conference when all the evidence has been collected and a fair representation of teacher practice can be established.