The "Evaluation Year"

The Evaluation Year and Structure of the Evaluation System

SchoolFi views "Evaluations" as a process that takes place over the course of the School Year.  The system is designed to evaluate any staff member, not just those that must be reported to NJ SMART.

A staff member's "Evaluation Year" consists of one or more "Evaluation Events".  Perhaps a staff member is evaluated once a year on a relatively informal basis.  Perhaps a staff member goes through the detailed process required by NJ SMART:  multiple observations, a formal scoring, and a summative readout, where each of these are considered "Evaluation Events".

In addition, a single "Evaluation Event", such as an Observation, may itself be composed of various pieces:  the formal in classroom observation, perhaps a pre-conference, perhaps a post-conference, a method of scoring the individual's performance.

Coding Staff Members

SchoolFi Evaluations starts by classifying staff members into the groups that will be evaluated similarly.  Staff members are coded by:

• Their "Evaluation Category" - A selected Category.
• Their Tenure Status - A staff member either: 
  • Has tenure
  • Does not have tenure.
  • Is in a position where tenure is "Not Applicable".
  • (Additional statuses are available if you need them)

Those two things:  -  tenure status and Evaluation Category - determine how the staff member will be.

Setting Up Staff Members 

All of the following fields must be set in order for a staff member to be evaluated and to do observations or evaluations:

• Demographics Screen Fields - Fields on each staff member's "Demographics" screen: 
  • Category - The staff member's "Category" field must be set.
    
    
  • Evaluation Category - The staff member's "job type" must be selected from the Evaluation Category drop down.
    
    
  • Evaluations "Role" Checkboxes: 
    • Observer / Evaluator - If the staff member is able to do Observations or Evaluations of other staff members, check their "Observer / Evaluator" checkbox.
    • Evaluation Process Administrator - If the staff member is going to be a "Process Administrator" for the entire Evaluation process in the school or district, check this checkbox.
• Qualifications Screen Field -  Field on each staff member's "Qualifications" screen:
   
  • Tenure - Each staff member's tenure status must be selected or the system will not be able to do Evaluations / Observations for them. If the staff member is not eligible for tenure, please select "Not Applicable". If the field is not set at all, the system cannot initialize the staff member's Evaluations records.
    
    
• Contacts Screen - 
  • Email Address - In order to have a Portal account, each staff member must have an email address on file on their Contacts screen. Without a Portal account, the staff member cannot interact with the Evaluations system.
    
    

That's it:  those few fields are all that is necessary to enable a staff member to do observations & evaluations and to be observed and/or evaluated.