How can AI help Vermont evaluators write Core Teaching Standards evaluations?
How can AI help Vermont evaluators write Core Teaching Standards evaluations?
Vermont takes local control seriously. It sets a common set of teaching standards — the InTASC-based Core Teaching Standards — and then leaves the design of teacher evaluation to each supervisory union and district, including the rating scale. The part an evaluator writes most is the observation write-up against those standards. That's where AI can genuinely help: drafting the write-up, mapping evidence to the right standard, and putting it in the standards' own language. What it can't do is decide your union's rating scale or produce the final determination. This post walks through where AI helps with the Core Teaching Standards, where it doesn't, and what to look for.
What Vermont's Core Teaching Standards are
Vermont's Core Teaching Standards were adopted by the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators (VSBPE) in 2011, and they are the InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards. They describe what every Vermont educator should know and be able to do, across all content areas and grade levels, and they are the shared basis every supervisory union's evaluation system is built on.
One detail matters for how evaluation actually works: the Core Teaching Standards are standards, not a rating instrument. They are explicitly not accompanied by a state rubric. That single fact shapes the entire Vermont picture.
Local control: how Vermont evaluation works
Vermont is a strong local-control state. Under the Education Quality Standards (State Board Rule 2000, with staff evaluation addressed in Rule 2121.4), each supervisory union or district designs its own supervision and evaluation system, aligned to State Board guidelines. There is no single statewide observation count, rubric, or rating scale.
The Agency of Education's role is to review evaluation systems, not teachers. When supervisory unions submit their systems, the AOE reviews them for alignment against a rubric built from the Vermont Guidelines for Teacher & Leader Effectiveness. The individual ratings themselves are produced locally, through each supervisory union's own system.
The ten standards and four categories
The ten Core Teaching Standards group into four categories:
The Learner and Learning — Standard 1, Learner Development; Standard 2, Learning Differences; and Standard 3, Learning Environments.
Content — Standard 4, Content Knowledge; and Standard 5, Application of Content.
Instructional Practice — Standard 6, Assessment; Standard 7, Planning for Instruction; and Standard 8, Instructional Strategies.
Professional Responsibility — Standard 9, Professional Learning and Ethical Practice; and Standard 10, Leadership and Collaboration.
The standards are interrelated and overlap in real practice — a single lesson touches several at once — which is part of why a good observation write-up takes time.
After the observation: where the work piles up
The observation is familiar work for a Vermont evaluator. The write-up that follows is where the hours go: taking fragmentary notes and organizing them as evidence against the right standard, settling on a defensible rating in your supervisory union's scale, and writing feedback a teacher can act on — across ten standards, and across a caseload.
Where AI helps with the Core Teaching Standards write-up
The strongest fit between current AI and Vermont's approach is that standards-based documentation.
AI handles three parts of it reliably. First, it turns fragmentary notes into coherent, evidence-anchored prose in the standards' language — the difference between "kids worked well in their groups" and a sentence tied to Standard 3, Learning Environments. Second, it maps evidence to the right standard, including evidence that supports more than one — useful precisely because the standards overlap. Third, it holds consistency across a caseload, so the same quality of evidence lands in similar territory from teacher to teacher.
For Vermont specifically, the value is drafting in the Core Teaching Standards' language, so the write-up plugs directly into whatever system your supervisory union has built.
Where AI doesn't help — and what stays with the evaluator
The honest scope follows from Vermont's local-control design.
AI cannot decide your supervisory union's rating scale. Because Vermont mandates none, a tool has to adapt to your union's labels rather than assume them. It also cannot produce the final determination, which is a calculation your union's system owns.
AI cannot supply an evaluator's professional judgment — what the evidence really shows, how a lesson fit a longer arc, how a rating fits the teacher's year. That stays with the evaluator, who remains the last set of eyes on every rating and comment.
And general-purpose AI has no built-in understanding of the Core Teaching Standards. Paste notes into a consumer chatbot and it will invent standards, assume a statewide rubric that doesn't exist, and miss the distinctions the standards require. For a system tied to your union's formal ratings, those errors surface at the worst possible moment.
What to look for in an AI tool for Vermont
A few questions worth asking before committing a tool to this work.
Does the tool actually know the ten Core Teaching Standards across the four categories, or does it produce generic "good teaching" language?
Does it adapt to your supervisory union's rating labels, rather than assuming a statewide scale Vermont doesn't have?
Does it stay in its lane, drafting the standards-aligned write-up and leaving the local system and final rating to your union?
Where does your observation data live — on the vendor's servers, or used to train models?
How EvalScribe handles the Core Teaching Standards
EvalScribe is built around all ten of Vermont's Core Teaching Standards, across the four categories. An evaluator captures notes by typing, dictating, or photographing handwriting (Smart Scan OCR converts it to text), EvalScribe maps that evidence to the standard it supports, and drafts a rating and evidence-anchored feedback for each — using the standards' own language. 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 Vermont's design calls for them. First, EvalScribe drafts the observation-based, standards-aligned write-up. Your supervisory union's rating labels, observation cadence, and final determination are set locally under the Education Quality Standards, not by the app. Second, because Vermont sets no statewide scale, EvalScribe defaults to a clear four-level scale (Ineffective, Developing, Effective, Highly Effective) and adapts to your union's own labels — just tell us what they are.
Beta testers report saving 30 to 60 minutes per evaluation versus writing the documentation by hand. Across ten standards and a full caseload, that adds up to real hours back — hours that can go to the coaching conversation the standards are built to support. More detail on the Vermont workflow is available at evalscribe.com/vermont.
Frequently asked questions about the Core Teaching Standards and AI
Does EvalScribe support Vermont's Core Teaching Standards? Yes — all ten InTASC-based standards, grouped into the four categories, with the standards' own language.
Does Vermont have a statewide rubric? No. The Core Teaching Standards are not accompanied by a state rubric, and Vermont mandates no statewide rating scale. Each supervisory union builds its own system. EvalScribe adapts to your union's scale.
What are the four categories? The Learner and Learning; Content; Instructional Practice; and Professional Responsibility — containing ten standards in all.
What does the state review do? The AOE reviews supervisory unions' evaluation systems for alignment, not individual teachers.
Can EvalScribe match my union's labels? Yes. It defaults to a four-level scale and adapts to whatever labels your supervisory union uses.
If you're evaluating teachers in Vermont, see how EvalScribe drafts across the Core Teaching Standards at evalscribe.com/vermont. Questions, or a school or supervisory-union license? Reach the team at [email protected].
References
Vermont Agency of Education, Teacher & Leader Effectiveness (the Core Teaching Standards, the Guidelines for Teacher & Leader Effectiveness, and system review)
Core Teaching and Leadership Standards for Vermont Educators, VSBPE (the ten InTASC-based standards and their four categories, adopted in 2011)
Vermont Education Quality Standards, State Board Rule 2000 (local supervision and evaluation, with staff evaluation addressed in Rule 2121.4)
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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 Vermont Agency of Education's Core Teaching Standards and the Education Quality Standards.
Last updated on August 6, 2026.
