AI-powered teacher evaluations
for West Virginia educators.

Yes — Standards 1 through 5, all fourteen elements, built in natively with language across the four performance levels, the look-fors an observer watches for, and the distinctions that separate adjacent ratings, in the rubric’s own vocabulary. Standards 6 and 7 are not in the tool; see below for why.

Seven. The confusion is understandable and it is baked into the state’s own materials: there are five West Virginia Professional Teaching Standards, and the self-reflection you file by October 1 covers those five. But the evaluation runs on seven — the five, plus Standard 6 (Student Learning) and Standard 7 (Professional Conduct). WVDE’s standards page describes the five and then points you to the Evaluation Rubrics for Teachers for the seven used in evaluation.

Because you can’t hand us the evidence, and we would rather say so than pretend. That’s the test we apply everywhere: for Standards 1 through 5 you can give us observation notes or an artifact. For 6 and 7 there is nothing to give. Standard 6 (Student Learning) is settled by the Student Learning Goals you filed by November 1 — pre and post measures, two data points, judged across the year on whether evidence from multiple measures consistently validates progress. Nothing in a 30-minute observation touches it. Standard 7 (Professional Conduct) rests on policy adherence, work schedule, attendance records, and a pattern of professional interaction — and its Unsatisfactory marker is explicitly a pattern, not an incident. It also runs on its own scale. We focus where an observation can actually reach.

Something quite specific, and not what most tools assume. Read WV’s Distinguished column across Standards 1 through 3 and the same phrase repeats: collaborates with students to design assessments; establishes clear criteria for high-quality work with students; collaborates with students to establish the classroom management system; facilitates student-led learning activities; collaborates with students and others to make instructional decisions. Accomplished is the teacher doing the work well. Distinguished is the teacher doing the work with students, plus contributing to the professional learning of others through teacher leadership. It is not Danielson’s Distinguished, and a tool that assumes it is will inflate every rating it writes.

No, and West Virginia says so directly. The rubrics state that the standards recognize Accomplished performance as meritorious as well as rigorous and of high quality, and that Accomplished is expected to be the most frequently recognized level. Distinguished will likely occur on occasion. That is a state pre-empting rating inflation in writing, and EvalScribe drafts to it.

No. Every rating is a draft you accept, change, or discard. Policy 5310 is explicit that evaluators do not use checklists to determine ratings, that ratings rest on a preponderance of the evidence, and that the level chosen must describe current, actual practice — not a future expectation. EvalScribe gets you to a defensible starting draft faster. The judgment stays yours.

WVDE requires it. Evidence must be noted in the system to support a Distinguished rating, and that evidence can live in the self-reflection, the summative evaluation, or both. In practice this means a Distinguished with nothing documented behind it is a problem waiting for a grievance. EvalScribe drafts the specific evidence alongside the rating for exactly this reason.

It depends on the progression. Initial: four — two scheduled and two unscheduled, one on or before November 1, one between November 1 and January 1, one between January 1 and March 1, and one between March 1 and May 1. Intermediate: two — one scheduled and one unscheduled, one on or before November 1 and one on or before May 1. Advanced: not required but recommended, and a teacher can request one within a timeframe they and the evaluator establish. Observations run not less than 30 minutes each.

Yes, and this is worth knowing before you assume the write-up is yours alone. WVDE defines educator evidence as observable practices and/or artifacts selected by the educator and/or the evaluator. On Standards 4 and 5 especially, the teacher is often the one bringing it. That is another reason EvalScribe stays focused on what you observed rather than drafting standards that were never a unilateral call.

They are two different requirements. Observations are Requirement Four; the Summative Evaluation is Requirement Five, and it covers all seven standards on a preponderance of the evidence gathered across the year. Your observation write-up is an input, not the output. EvalScribe drafts the input.

A Focused Support Plan runs nine weeks. If it results in inadequate progress and an evaluation shows unsatisfactory performance on one or more standards, a Corrective Action Plan follows — 18 weeks, with at least one observation completed before it begins. If evidence does not demonstrate adequate progress at the end of the 18 weeks, termination for unsatisfactory performance follows. One detail worth holding onto: unsatisfactory performance on a single element cannot initiate a CAP. That is a standard-level judgment, not an element-level one.

The evaluator finalizes the summative at the conclusion of the conference — by the teacher’s last day or June 15, whichever comes first. The teacher’s signature denotes that the evaluator reviewed the evaluation with them; it does not imply concurrence. The teacher may append a statement as an addendum within five working days.

Generic AI tools have no built-in knowledge of Policy 5310. They find the five Professional Teaching Standards and miss that evaluation runs on seven. They reach for Danielson’s Distinguished and inflate. They treat Accomplished as filler when West Virginia calls it meritorious. They rate whole standards when the rubric separates Emerging from Accomplished on single words. And they will happily draft Standards 6 and 7 from a lesson they were told about. EvalScribe is built around West Virginia’s actual rubrics and the workflow around them, from capture through export.

Your notes are processed transiently on Microsoft Azure and are not retained on our servers. Evaluation records live locally on your device. Nothing is used to train public AI models. Districts needing a Data Processing Agreement or FERPA attestation can request one.

Start with the Evaluation Rubrics for Teachers from WVDE, which contains all seven standards, all sixteen elements, and the performance-level descriptors. WVBE Policy 5310 (126CSR142) is the governing rule. The West Virginia Professional Teaching Standards document covers the first five in depth. WVDE’s Office of District and School Improvement also publishes a Performance Evaluation of Teachers overview with the timelines and progressions. Everything on this page is drawn from those.