AI-powered teacher evaluations
for New Mexico educators.
Cut Elevate NM documentation from hours to minutes. EvalScribe is built around New Mexico's teacher evaluation system natively — all four Danielson-based domains and the Innovating to Not Demonstrating criteria ratings, in the framework's own language.
Saved per evaluation
All Elevate NM domains, built in
Rated across the four domains
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.
New Mexico-specific
All four Elevate NM domains and the four criteria ratings, 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 New Mexico evaluator.
Elevate NM. EvalScribe is built around all four domains.
Elevate NM is New Mexico's statewide teacher evaluation system, published by the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) and delivered on the Canvas platform. It is built on a revised Charlotte Danielson Framework, organizing teaching into four domains and nineteen elements, each rated on a four-level criteria scale. EvalScribe is built around Elevate NM's structure and language.
Elevate NM — four domains, nineteen elements
Elevate NM replaced the old NMTEACH system in 2019, removing standardized-test and value-added scores in favor of an observation-and-growth model. The system pairs an educator Professional Development Plan with walkthroughs, formal observations, and professional evidence. Its observation rubric is organized into four domains adapted from Danielson's Framework for Teaching, and EvalScribe maps your observation evidence to the element it supports and drafts a rating and feedback in the framework's own language.
The four Elevate NM domains.
Planning and Preparation
Before the lessonKnowledge of content, students, and resources, and coherent instructional design and assessment planning.
Creating an Environment for Learning
The classroomA culture of respect and rapport, clear expectations, and managed routines that support learning.
Teaching for Learning
InstructionClear communication, strong questioning and discussion, student engagement, and using assessment to adjust instruction.
Professionalism
Beyond the lessonReflection on practice, record keeping, communication with families, and professional growth and contribution.
Across these four domains sit nineteen elements. All nineteen are rated for a complete evaluation; the fourteen elements in Domains 2, 3, and 4 are used for federal reporting.
The four Elevate NM criteria ratings.
Innovating
Applying
Developing
Not Demonstrating
Elevate NM uses outcome-based criteria ratings rather than a single numeric score.
How EvalScribe handles Elevate NM
The four domains and their nineteen elements are built into the tool, each with Elevate NM's own language across the four criteria ratings — Innovating, Applying, Developing, and Not Demonstrating — and the distinctions that separate adjacent ratings. EvalScribe maps the evidence from your walkthrough or formal observation notes to the element it supports and drafts best-fit ratings and evidence-anchored feedback, so the write-up is defensible and traceable back to what you observed.
Elevate NM lives in Canvas. New Mexico administers Elevate NM through the NMPED Canvas platform, where the official self-reflection, Professional Development Plan, observation ratings, and professional evidence are recorded. EvalScribe speeds the part that takes the most time — turning your observation notes into element-aligned ratings and feedback — which you then enter or upload into Canvas as your official record. It complements the state platform rather than replacing it.
No test scores required. Since the 2019 redesign, Elevate NM is observation-and-growth based; it does not fold in standardized-test or value-added scores. EvalScribe works entirely from your observation evidence, which fits how New Mexico evaluates today. Questions about a specific element or setup? Email [email protected].
How EvalScribe works with Elevate NM.
A five-step path from the back of the classroom to a finished, standards-aligned evaluation.
Observe the classroom
Formal observation or walkthrough — 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 elements
EvalScribe identifies which of the 19 Elevate NM elements each note supports, across all four domains.
Suggested ratings & comments
Get draft ratings and feedback language in the rubric's own voice, across the four-level scale.
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 DC-aware drafting pipeline as scans and dictation.
Why generic AI falls short for Elevate NM.
Pasting your walkthrough notes into a general-purpose chatbot might produce a paragraph that sounds polished — but for Elevate NM documentation, "sounds polished" isn't the bar. Defensible, element-aligned evaluations are.
| Capability | Generic AI (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) | EvalScribe |
|---|---|---|
| Framework awareness | ✕No concept of Elevate NM, its 19 elements, or its four criteria ratings. Treats every prompt the same. | ✓Built around Elevate NM's actual domains, element language, and four criteria ratings. |
| Element mapping | ✕Invents domain and element labels and rubric language that don't match Elevate NM. | ✓Maps evidence to the real 19 Elevate NM elements using the actual framework loaded into the app. |
| The right rating scale | ✕Reaches for generic or Danielson-default labels, not Elevate NM's criteria ratings. | ✓Drafts in Elevate NM's own scale — Innovating, Applying, Developing, Not Demonstrating. |
| Observation-based, not test-based | ✕May assume test or growth scores factor in, as the old NMTEACH did. | ✓Works entirely from observation evidence, matching how New Mexico evaluates since 2019. |
| Fits the Canvas workflow | ✕Produces text with no relationship to how Elevate NM is actually recorded. | ✓Drafts element-aligned ratings and feedback you enter or upload into the NMPED Canvas platform. |
| 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 Elevate NM. |
| 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 New Mexico 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 an Elevate NM 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 district stakeholders.
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 Elevate NM
- 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
District-wide
For districts deploying across every evaluator.
Best value for full deployments
- Everything in School-wide
- 20% volume discount
- Single access code for the entire district
- 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.
Elevate NM & EvalScribe — common questions.
Does EvalScribe support New Mexico's Elevate NM system?
Yes. EvalScribe is built around Elevate NM's four domains — Planning and Preparation, Creating an Environment for Learning, Teaching for Learning, and Professionalism — and their nineteen elements. It maps your observation evidence to the element it supports and drafts a rating and feedback for each, using Elevate NM's own criteria ratings (Innovating, Applying, Developing, Not Demonstrating).
Does EvalScribe replace the NMPED Canvas platform?
No. New Mexico administers Elevate NM through the NMPED Canvas platform, where the official self-reflection, Professional Development Plan, observation ratings, and professional evidence are recorded. EvalScribe speeds the most time-consuming part — turning your observation notes into element-aligned ratings and feedback — which you then enter or upload into Canvas. It complements the state platform rather than replacing it.
What are the Elevate NM rating levels?
Elevate NM uses four outcome-based criteria ratings rather than a single numeric score: Innovating, Applying, Developing, and Not Demonstrating. These replaced the five effectiveness levels used by the old NMTEACH system. EvalScribe drafts element ratings across these four, distinguishing adjacent ratings using the rubric's own criteria.
Does Elevate NM still use student test scores?
No. When New Mexico replaced NMTEACH with Elevate NM in 2019, it removed standardized-test and value-added scores from teacher evaluation. The old system counted student achievement as 50% of a teacher's score; Elevate NM is observation-and-growth based instead. EvalScribe works entirely from your observation evidence, which matches how New Mexico evaluates today.
How many elements does Elevate NM rate?
Nineteen, spread across the four domains. All nineteen are rated for a complete and meaningful evaluation; the fourteen elements in Domains 2, 3, and 4 are the ones NMPED uses for federal reporting. EvalScribe handles all nineteen, so nothing is left out of the write-up.
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 Elevate NM. They invent elements that don't exist, reach for the wrong rating scale, assume test scores still factor in, and produce vague comments that miss the criteria distinctions the rubric requires. EvalScribe is built around Elevate NM's actual domains, elements, and criteria ratings — and the evaluator workflow that surrounds them — from capture through final feedback.
Where can I read the official Elevate NM sources?
NMPED maintains the Educator Evaluation pages, including the Elevate NM domains and memos. For questions, NMPED lists [email protected] as the Elevate NM contact.
Which other 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 New Mexico 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