How can AI help Delaware evaluators write teacher evaluations under the DTGSS?
How can AI help Delaware evaluators write teacher evaluations under the DTGSS?
Delaware evaluates classroom teachers through the Delaware Teacher Growth and Support System (DTGSS), and the honest answer about AI is the same as it is elsewhere: it helps with one specific part of the process. The DTGSS organizes teaching into four Performance Areas, three of which are observed in the classroom through nine indicators, and the observation write-up that documents them is where an evaluator spends the documentation hours. AI can genuinely help there — mapping observation evidence to the right indicator and drafting feedback in the framework's own language. What it can't do is set a teacher's growth goals, measure student learning, or combine the Performance Areas into a Summative Rating. This post walks through where AI helps with the DTGSS, where it doesn't, and what to look for.
What the DTGSS actually is
Delaware's evaluation system for classroom teachers is the DTGSS, which replaced DPAS-II beginning in the 2023-24 school year. It grew out of House Bill 291, signed in 2022, and is set out in Delaware regulation (14 DE Admin. Code 106A). DPAS-II — the Delaware Performance Appraisal System — continues for specialists and administrators, but for classroom teachers the current system is the DTGSS. If you're working from DPAS-II materials, that's the first thing to update.
The DTGSS is built on the Delaware Professional Teaching Standards and a modified version of Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching. It's designed as a growth-and-support system: teachers receive ongoing feedback across the year, and performance ratings are assigned only at the end, using evidence gathered over multiple observations. The change also updated the language — an "Evaluator" is now a "Credentialed Administrator," and an "Improvement Plan" is now a "Directed Growth Plan."
The four Performance Areas
The DTGSS organizes teaching into four Performance Areas. The first three are the classroom-observed core, captured in the Delaware Teacher Classroom Observation Framework, each framed by an essential question and defined by three indicators — nine indicators in all:
Performance Area 1 — Learning Environment. To what extent does the classroom environment support all students to learn? Routines, structures, and culture that make learning possible.
Performance Area 2 — Engagement in Learning. To what extent are all students engaged in meaningful, rigorous learning? Participation, discourse, and ownership of the work.
Performance Area 3 — Maximizing Learning. Does the instruction support and advance learning for all students? Standards-aligned, rigorous, responsive instruction.
Performance Area 4 — Outcomes of Learning. Professional growth goals and student learning goals, set collaboratively each fall with the Credentialed Administrator and reviewed across the year.
Each Performance Area also names Core Teacher Skills. These are not rated on their own; they name the supporting work — including planning and preparation — that makes high-quality teaching possible.
A design choice worth understanding: planning isn't its own indicator
If you're coming from a traditional Danielson-based system, one DTGSS feature stands out. Planning and preparation, which in classic Danielson is a full domain rated on its own, is not one of the nine observed indicators in Delaware. Instead, it's named as a Core Teacher Skill and observed through its result — the quality of the lesson and the learning it produces.
The framework is explicit that this doesn't make planning less important; planning is treated as critical. What it affirms is that what matters most for students is the instruction they actually experience, and so instruction is what gets assessed. For an evaluator, the practical effect is that you document what you saw in the classroom against the nine indicators, and you don't score a separate planning domain. An AI tool that invents a planning rating is speaking the wrong framework for Delaware.
Four levels, four summative ratings
Each indicator and Performance Area is described across four Levels of Performance — Level 1 through Level 4 — with descriptors articulating the teacher and student behaviors an observer would see at each level. Ratings are assigned at the end of the year, using evidence collected across at least three classroom observations, so a single lesson never decides a teacher's rating.
The four Performance Area ratings then combine into one overall Summative Rating: Highly Effective, Effective, Needs Improvement, or Ineffective. That rating carries real weight in Delaware, which is one more reason the underlying documentation needs to be defensible.
After the observation: where the work piles up
The observation itself is familiar work for an experienced Delaware evaluator. The write-up that follows is where the hours go: taking fragmentary observation notes and organizing them as evidence against the right indicators, settling on a defensible level of performance, and drafting feedback a teacher can act on — Delaware frames this as claim-and-impact feedback — then doing it again across a caseload, across multiple observations a year.
Where AI helps with the DTGSS write-up
The strongest fit between current AI and DTGSS work is that observation documentation.
AI handles three parts of it reliably. First, it turns fragmentary notes into coherent, evidence-anchored prose in the framework's language — the difference between "kids explained their reasoning to each other" and a sentence tied to Performance Area 2 on engagement in learning. Second, it maps evidence to the right indicator, including evidence that supports more than one — a well-run discussion can speak to both the learning environment and engagement. Third, it holds consistency across a caseload, so the same quality of evidence lands in similar territory from teacher to teacher rather than drifting with the hour of the night.
For Delaware specifically, the value is drafting in the DTGSS's own indicator language and levels, in the claim-and-impact style, so what you bring to the debrief and the year-end rating is already aligned.
Where AI doesn't help — and what stays with the evaluator
The honest scope follows from how the DTGSS is built.
AI cannot set a teacher's growth or student learning goals. Performance Area 4 is built around goals set collaboratively between the teacher and the Credentialed Administrator each fall; that's a professional conversation, not a drafting task.
AI cannot measure student learning or calculate the Summative Rating. Tools like EvalScribe draft the classroom-observation piece — Performance Areas 1 through 3. Performance Area 4 and the combination of all four areas into the overall rating are handled in your district's DTGSS process.
AI cannot supply an evaluator's professional and local judgment — what the evidence really shows, how a teacher's year unfolded, how a rating fits the context. That stays with the Credentialed Administrator, who remains the last set of eyes on every rating and comment. Delaware reinforces this by requiring observers to be credentialed through state-approved training.
And general-purpose AI in particular has no built-in understanding of the DTGSS. Paste notes into a consumer chatbot and it will invent indicators, confuse the DTGSS with the old DPAS-II, and sometimes score a planning domain the framework doesn't rate. For a document tied to a teacher's standing, those errors are the kind that surface at the worst possible moment.
What to look for in an AI tool for the DTGSS
A few questions worth asking before committing a tool to this work.
Does the tool actually know the four Performance Areas and the nine indicators, or does it produce generic "good teaching" language?
Does it draft toward Delaware's four levels of performance and the claim-and-impact style, rather than a generic gradient?
Does it respect the framework's structure — including not inventing a planning rating the DTGSS doesn't use?
Does it stay in its lane, drafting Performance Areas 1 through 3 and leaving Performance Area 4 goals and the summative combination to your district's process?
Where does your observation data live? Is it stored on the vendor's servers, or used to train models?
How EvalScribe handles the DTGSS
EvalScribe is built around the four DTGSS Performance Areas and the nine observation indicators. An evaluator captures notes by typing, dictating, or photographing handwriting (Smart Scan OCR converts it to text), EvalScribe maps that evidence to the indicator it supports, and drafts a rating and evidence-anchored feedback for each — using the framework's own language across the four levels of performance, in Delaware's claim-and-impact style. Every rating and comment is fully editable before you finalize it, and the evidence stays traceable to the note it came from.
Two scope notes, because Delaware's structure calls for them. First, EvalScribe drafts the classroom-observation piece — Performance Areas 1 through 3. Performance Area 4 (professional growth and student learning goals) is set with your Credentialed Administrator, and the combination of all four Performance Areas into the Summative Rating happens in your district's DTGSS process, not the app. Second, the DTGSS is the current classroom-teacher system; DPAS-II continues for specialists and administrators, and EvalScribe is built around the DTGSS for teachers.
Beta testers report saving 30 to 60 minutes per evaluation versus writing the documentation by hand. Across a full caseload and multiple observations a year, that adds up to dozens of hours back — hours that can go to the feedback conversation the ratings are meant to support. More detail on the Delaware workflow is available at evalscribe.com/delaware.
Frequently asked questions about the DTGSS and AI
Does EvalScribe support the DTGSS? Yes. It's built around the four Performance Areas — Learning Environment, Engagement in Learning, Maximizing Learning, and Outcomes of Learning — and the nine observation indicators, and drafts across the four levels of performance.
Is Delaware still using DPAS-II? For classroom teachers, no — the DTGSS replaced DPAS-II in 2023-24. DPAS-II continues for specialists and administrators.
What are the DTGSS rating levels? Indicators and Performance Areas are rated on four levels (Level 1 to Level 4), which combine into four summative ratings: Highly Effective, Effective, Needs Improvement, and Ineffective.
Does EvalScribe calculate my summative rating? No. It drafts Performance Areas 1 through 3; Performance Area 4 goals and the summative combination happen in your district's DTGSS process.
Why isn't planning rated separately? By design. Planning and preparation are named as Core Teacher Skills and observed through the quality of the lesson, rather than rated as their own indicator.
Does AI replace evaluator judgment? No. The observation, the ratings, and the professional judgment are yours — which is exactly what Delaware's observer credentialing certifies. AI translates your judgment into indicator-aligned documentation.
If you're evaluating teachers in Delaware under the DTGSS, see how EvalScribe drafts in the four Performance Areas and nine indicators at evalscribe.com/delaware. Questions, or a school or district license? Reach the team at [email protected].
References
Delaware Department of Education, Delaware Teacher Growth and Support System (DTGSS) (the four Performance Areas; DTGSS replaced DPAS-II for teachers in 2023-24)
Delaware Department of Education, Delaware Teacher Classroom Observation Framework (Performance Areas 1-3, indicators, and levels of performance)
Delaware Administrative Code, 14 DE Admin. Code 106A — Teacher Appraisal Process (DTGSS) (the four overall summative ratings)
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Page maintained by Anthony D. Neely, Ph.D. — practicing K-12 educator with nearly 20 years in the classroom, 2025–2026 Walker County Distinguished Teacher of the Year, and co-founder of EvalScribe. Framework details verified against the Delaware Department of Education's DTGSS guidebook and the Delaware Teacher Classroom Observation Framework.
Last updated on August 2, 2026.
