AI-powered teacher evaluations
for Hawaii educators.
Cut evaluation documentation from hours to minutes. EvalScribe is built around the Hawaii Adapted Framework for Teaching natively — the five classroom-observation focus components and the Core Professionalism domain of the Educator Effectiveness System (EES), in the rubric's own language.
Saved per evaluation
Plus Core Professionalism, built in
To capture notes
Evaluator-controlled ratings
Three evaluations free — no credit card · Individual plans from $100/year · School & district licensing available
Endorsed by educational leaders
Game changer. Absolute game changer for school admin.
Tobin Davidson · Assistant Superintendent · 40+ years in education
This is amazing. I would pay lots of money for this. I’m serious — it’s crazy good.
Kittie Brown · Assistant Principal
Also endorsed by Dr. Robert Stinson · Glenn Brown · Angie Brandt — read full quotes ↓
Built by a classroom teacher
Founded by a practicing K–12 educator with nearly 20 years in the field.
Hawaii-specific
The five EES focus components and Core Professionalism, built in natively.
Privacy-first
Transient processing on Microsoft Azure. Never used for AI training.
Built for workflow
Designed around the realities of being a Hawaii evaluator.
Hawaii observes on five focus components. EvalScribe is built around all of them.
The Hawaii Adapted Framework for Teaching is HIDOE's Danielson-based observation rubric. Rather than scoring the full Framework for Teaching, the Department deliberately narrowed classroom observation to five focus components — two from the Classroom Environment domain, three from Instruction — chosen for their alignment with statewide strategic initiatives. A separate Core Professionalism domain is rated holistically. Together, these make up the Teacher Practice and professionalism pieces of Hawaii's Educator Effectiveness System (EES).
Hawaii Adapted Framework for Teaching (EES)
The five focus components are drawn directly from Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching, using the same domain and component numbering. Core Professionalism sits outside that observation rubric as its own domain, rated as a single holistic score rather than component-by-component — the way HIDOE's own manual scores it.
Five observable components. One holistic professionalism domain.
The Classroom Environment
2 components- 2b Establishing a Culture for Learning
- 2d Managing Student Behavior
Instruction
3 components- 3b Using Questioning & Discussion Techniques
- 3c Engaging Students in Learning
- 3d Using Assessment in Instruction
Core Professionalism
Rated holistically- Professional ethics
- Record-keeping systems
- Family/community communication
- School & department participation
- Professional development engagement
- Reflection on practice
Scored as one overall rating covering all six areas, per HIDOE's Domain 4 rubric — not six separate sub-scores.
The four-level scale — and how it translates to your EES rating.
Unsatisfactory
Basic
→ MarginalProficient
→ EffectiveDistinguished
→ Highly EffectiveNotice the point values skip 1 — Hawaii's own scale runs 0, 2, 3, 4. Each component-level rating also translates into the label used for your overall EES rating, shown above each pill.
How EvalScribe handles the Hawaii Adapted Framework
All five observable components and the Core Professionalism domain are built into the tool, using the rubric's own language across all four levels — including the 0/2/3/4 point scale and the Unsatisfactory/Basic/Proficient/Distinguished-to-Marginal/Effective/Highly Effective label translation. EvalScribe maps your evidence to the correct component and drafts best-fit ratings and feedback in the rubric's voice. For Core Professionalism, EvalScribe drafts one holistic rating and narrative covering all six focus areas, matching how HIDOE's own manual scores that domain.
Honest scope on the EES composite: classroom observation is one part of Hawaii's Educator Effectiveness System. Under EES, Teacher Practice (classroom observation) contributes 30% of the overall composite, Core Professionalism contributes 20% (which also draws on Tripod Student Survey data), and Student Growth and Learning — Student Learning Objectives and Student Growth Percentiles from the Hawaii Growth Model — contributes the remaining 50%. EvalScribe drafts the Teacher Practice observation ratings and can help document Core Professionalism narrative; it does not administer or score the Tripod survey, calculate Student Growth Percentiles, or compute your overall composite EES rating. Those stay with your evaluator and school.
How EvalScribe works with the Hawaii framework.
A five-step path from the back of the classroom to a finished, standards-aligned evaluation.
Observe the classroom
Formal observation cycle or working portfolio evidence — capture what you see the way you always have.
Enter notes your way
Type, dictate, or snap a photo of your handwritten notes. Smart Scan converts handwriting to text.
Map evidence to components
EvalScribe identifies which of the 5 focus components — or Core Professionalism — each note supports.
Suggested ratings & comments
Get draft ratings and feedback language in the rubric's own voice, with the correct EES label translation.
Review & finalize
Edit anything you want, finalize the evaluation, and export a clean PDF for your records.
EvalScribe runs natively on iPhone, iPad, and Mac — work where you are.
Capture notes the way you already work.
No retraining required. Whatever your walkthrough style, EvalScribe accepts it.
Snap a photo
Photograph your handwritten notes mid-walkthrough. Smart Scan OCR converts handwriting to text — even messy handwriting, even pedagogical terms.
Dictate as you go
Speak observations directly into the app. Voice dictation captures what you saw without breaking your eye contact with the classroom.
Type directly
Prefer to type? Enter notes straight into the app — they flow into the same Hawaii-aware drafting pipeline as scans and dictation.
Why generic AI falls short for Hawaii's EES.
Pasting your walkthrough notes into a general-purpose chatbot might produce a paragraph that sounds polished — but for Hawaii Adapted Framework documentation, "sounds polished" isn't the bar. Defensible, standards-aligned evaluations are.
| Capability | Generic AI (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) | EvalScribe |
|---|---|---|
| Framework awareness | ✕No concept that Hawaii scores only 5 focus components, not the full Danielson framework. | ✓Built around HIDOE's actual 5 focus components plus Core Professionalism — nothing more, nothing less. |
| The 0/2/3/4 point scale | ✕Defaults to a generic 1-2-3-4 scale, missing Hawaii's own point values entirely. | ✓Uses HIDOE's actual point scale — 0, 2, 3, 4 — and the correct EES label translation for each. |
| Core Professionalism scoring | ✕Would likely score all 6 focus areas separately, contradicting how HIDOE actually rates the domain. | ✓Drafts one holistic Core Professionalism rating and narrative, matching HIDOE's own manual. |
| EES composite awareness | ✕No idea classroom observation is 30% of a larger composite that also includes SGP and SLO data. | ✓Drafts the Teacher Practice observation honestly, with the 30/20/50 composite structure named up front. |
| Note input | ✕Requires you to retype everything before the AI can do anything with it. | ✓Accepts typed notes, dictation, or photos of handwritten notes via Smart Scan OCR. |
| Feedback language | ✕Vague, generic comments that could describe any teacher. | ✓Professional, evidence-anchored feedback written in the language of the Hawaii Adapted Framework. |
| Data privacy | ✕Free tiers may use your inputs to train public models. | ✓Enterprise-grade Microsoft Azure. Transient processing. Zero retention. Never used for training. |
| Defensibility | ✕Output you can't trace back to evidence or rubric language. | ✓Every comment is tied to evidence pulled from your notes and the component it supports. |
How much Hawaii evaluation time could you reclaim?
Tune the inputs to your reality. The numbers update as you go.
You could reclaim approximately
hours per year
Workdays reclaimed
Total evaluations
Based on early EvalScribe users saving an average of 35 minutes per evaluation. Individual results may vary based on your current workflow.
The best way to see it
is to watch it.
Reading about how EvalScribe drafts a Hawaii evaluation isn't the same as watching it happen. The demo walks through a real observation — capture, mapping, scoring, and final export — start to finish.
The draft review screen — every comment, rating, and piece of mapped evidence is fully editable before export.
See an example EvalScribe report.
A real EvalScribe-generated evaluation, formatted exactly as it exports from the app. The workflow is the same across frameworks — useful to share with your evaluator or complex area staff.
Download sample PDFWhat educational leaders are saying.
Real feedback from administrators across roles — from academic coaches to assistant superintendents.
EvalScribe is a tool that every public school principal should use. This resource literally makes multiple people out of administrators, allowing them to focus their energies on precise observation analysis and quality feedback while leaving EvalScribe to handle the mechanics. This tool will remove virtually all of the drudgery from the classroom evaluation process and would represent an excellent use of school funds.
Dr. Robert Stinson
Principal
After seeing a detailed demonstration of EvalScribe, I came away very impressed with both the concept and the execution. The platform provides administrators with a practical way to quickly capture classroom observations and generate high-quality, customized feedback that remains aligned to their evaluation framework and local expectations. What stood out most was the balance between efficiency and quality. EvalScribe has the potential to reduce administrative workload while helping school leaders provide more timely and meaningful feedback to teachers — a tool with considerable promise for schools and districts.
Glenn Brown
Director of Student Services
Game changer. Absolute game changer for school admin.
Tobin Davidson
Assistant Superintendent · 40+ years in education
This is amazing. I would pay lots of money for this. I’m serious — it’s crazy good. I look forward to using it on a regular basis next year.
Kittie Brown
Assistant Principal
Evaluators spend an inordinate amount of time recording and documenting evaluations. This app is easy to use, affordable, and incredibly efficient. It cuts the time spent recording and documenting evaluations down significantly and frees us up to handle other aspects of the job. Plus, the conference suggestions save on prep time when a conference is warranted.
Angie Brandt
Academic Coach
Built by educators, for educators.
EvalScribe was co-founded by a practicing classroom teacher and his wife — a husband-and-wife team with thirty years of combined classroom and business experience.
Anthony Neely, Ph.D.
Co-founder · Product
A tenured K–12 classroom teacher and Professional Learning Lead. District Teacher of the Year, with nearly 20 years in education and three published books.
Andrea Neely, Ph.D.
Co-founder · Business
Associate Professor of Management. Research and teaching in organizational management.
Your evaluation data stays yours.
Observation notes are processed transiently on Microsoft Azure and are not retained on our servers. Your evaluation records live locally on your device. Notes and evaluations are never used to train public AI models. For districts needing a Data Processing Agreement or FERPA attestation, those are available on request.
Simple, transparent pricing.
Try EvalScribe with three free evaluations. When you're ready to keep going, pick the plan that fits your role.
Individual
For a single evaluator on their own device.
Billed annually per user
- Unlimited evaluations
- All supported frameworks, including Hawaii's EES
- iOS & macOS access
- 3 free evaluations to start
School-wide
For a school with multiple evaluators.
3+ evaluators
- Everything in Individual
- 10% volume discount
- Unique access code issued to your school
- Easy distribution to your evaluators
Complex/District-wide
For a complex area deploying across every evaluator.
Best value for full deployments
- Everything in School-wide
- 20% volume discount
- Single access code for the entire complex
- Direct support contact for rollout
All pricing shown is introductory and may change. For school and district plans, EvalScribe issues a unique access code that the buyer distributes to their evaluators.
Hawaii's EES & EvalScribe — common questions.
Does EvalScribe support the full Danielson Framework for Hawaii, or just certain components?
Just the components HIDOE actually scores. Hawaii deliberately narrowed classroom observation to five focus components — 2b, 2d, 3b, 3c, and 3d — chosen for their alignment with statewide strategic initiatives, rather than scoring the full Framework for Teaching. EvalScribe matches that intentional design: exactly those five components, plus the separate Core Professionalism domain.
Why does the point scale skip from 0 to 2?
That's Hawaii's own point scale for these components: Unsatisfactory is worth 0 points, Basic is worth 2, Proficient is worth 3, and Distinguished is worth 4. EvalScribe uses these exact point values rather than defaulting to a generic 1-2-3-4 scale.
What's the difference between a component rating and my overall EES rating label?
They use different label sets. Individual components are rated Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, or Distinguished. Your overall EES composite rating uses a different set of labels: Unsatisfactory, Marginal, Effective, or Highly Effective. Basic translates to Marginal, Proficient translates to Effective, and Distinguished translates to Highly Effective. EvalScribe uses the correct label for each context.
How is Core Professionalism scored?
Holistically — one overall rating covering all six focus areas (professional ethics, record-keeping, family communication, school/department participation, professional development, and reflection on practice), not six separate sub-scores. EvalScribe drafts Core Professionalism the same way, matching HIDOE's own Domain 4 rubric.
Does EvalScribe calculate my overall EES composite rating?
No — and we're deliberately clear about that. Your EES composite combines Teacher Practice/classroom observation (30%), Core Professionalism (20%, which also draws on Tripod Student Survey data), and Student Growth and Learning — SLOs and Student Growth Percentiles from the Hawaii Growth Model (50%). EvalScribe drafts the Teacher Practice observation and helps document Core Professionalism narrative; it does not administer the Tripod survey, calculate Student Growth Percentiles, or compute your composite rating.
What about the Working Portfolio for non-classroom teachers?
The Working Portfolio is HIDOE's alternative to classroom observation for non-classroom teacher (NCT) roles — instructional specialists, counselors, library/media staff, and similar positions. EvalScribe's Hawaii framework is built for the classroom-teacher observation path; if Working Portfolio support would help your role, email [email protected].
Does EvalScribe replace evaluator judgment?
No. EvalScribe drafts evidence-mapped evaluations and suggested ratings. The evaluator reviews, edits, and finalizes every document. The professional judgment is always yours — EvalScribe just removes the typing.
Can the generated evaluations be edited?
Yes, fully. Every comment, every rating, and every piece of mapped evidence inside a draft evaluation can be edited before you export the final PDF. You are always the last set of eyes on the document.
Is observation data stored?
Your notes are processed transiently on Microsoft Azure and are not retained on EvalScribe's servers. Your evaluation records sit locally on your device under a local-first architecture. Your data is never used to train public AI models. For more detail, see our Privacy Policy.
How is EvalScribe different from ChatGPT or Claude?
Generic AI tools have no built-in understanding of Hawaii's narrowed 5-component observation model, its 0/2/3/4 point scale, or the label translation to your overall EES rating. They'd likely default to the full Danielson framework and a generic scale. EvalScribe is built around HIDOE's actual, intentionally scoped rubric — from capture through final export.
Where can I read the official Hawaii EES sources?
The Hawaii Department of Education publishes the current Educator Effectiveness System Manual for Evaluators and Participants, which includes the Hawaii Adapted Framework for Teaching Rubrics, through HIDOE's Office of Talent Management. EES is governed by Hawaii Board of Education Policy 2055.
Which other state frameworks are supported?
EvalScribe ships with frameworks from all 50 states and Washington D.C., plus general models such as Danielson, Marzano, Stronge, CEL 5D+, NIET, and Kim Marshall. The complete list is available at evalscribe.com/frameworks.
Don't see your question? Reach out via our contact page — we read every message personally.
Spend less time on paperwork.
Lead your building.
EvalScribe was built to help Hawaii evaluators spend less time documenting evaluations and more time doing what matters: leading instruction, coaching teachers, and walking buildings.
Three evaluations free — no credit card · Available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac