Overview

The following information will assist the district in a smooth and successful Evaluation Year with Teacher Vitae. Some of these things have to be done, some are what we consider to be Best Practices and highly suggested and some are optional. 

Best Practices

Organizational Units (OUs)

Organizational Units/School Buildings. All of the district's buildings need to be identified. If a school or building has a separate state ID it needs to be added to the list in the Organizational Units → Manage Organization page; this includes the District Office. Staff members can be added to multiple OU’s/buildings and Administrators need to be added to their assigned OU’s/buildings as well as the District Office

Positions

Positions are optional and can be set for employees to add additional information to Job History in the Employee Management section of Teacher Vitae.

Evaluation Year

Before starting with Teacher Vitae it is necessary to add the current Evaluation Year in the system. This will update the school year in all areas of Teacher Vitae. As time goes on previous years are visible for accessing previous observations, evaluations and other documents as needed. 

Import Staff

Staff members change over time and need to be updated or changed in Teacher Vitae to make sure staff are in the right OU, the State ID’s are correct, former members are deactivated and new members are added. It is important to keep staff updated to make sure that they have the correct Roles and permissions, for state reporting and for billing purposes.

Roles

Teacher Vitae Administrator will need to ensure that the right people have the right Roles and add or remove any staff members to and from Roles as needed. Roles are only added to Administrator accounts. Roles are given to Admin that will be conducting specific duties in the district when it comes to Teacher Vitae.

Periods

Evaluation Periods are used to describe at what point of the school year an Observation or Evaluation was conducted. By default Teacher Vitae comes with Fall, Winter, Spring and Not Specified. These are usually all a district needs.

Tags

There are two types of Tags:

Employee

Employee Tags can be used to group employees for easy filtering and assignment of forms and documents.

Evaluation

Evaluation Tags are used to filter and attach answers to questions questions by type based on the district approved Evaluation Framework.

Both types of tags have to first be associated with Tag Families. Tags can not be created before creating Tag Families. Multiple Tags can be attached to one Tag Family. This is best explained with Domains. A single Domain has multiple Characteristics. A Tag Family would be the Domain and the Tag would be the Characteristics. 

Form Templates

Best Practice suggests that for the district's first year it is best to use our premade Form Templates and Tags. This prevents you from overwhelming your administration and staff the first year. Use our premade templates out of the box. Then, note what works well for your staff and administrators and what doesn’t. The following year you can customize Teacher Vitae after you have experienced how and why it works.

Professional Development Courses

When the district finds good PD it can be entered into Teacher Vitae, assigned to the staff and tracked. Staff can also enter Specialized PD that they have taken independently of the district. Courses can be added to create a simple yet effective or vast catalog of Courses.  Silverback preloads several PD courses that are available through Silverback or our partners as well.

Professional Development Sessions 

Similar to Tag Families and Tags there must first be a PD Course before a Session can be created. If a course has specific times and dates these can be entered as Sessions. If the course is independent study then a session can be several months long to meet the requirements of the provider.

Packages

Packages allow the district to assign all observations, evaluations and self evaluations to all or some staff members at one time. Professional Development can also be added to a package for assignment. Packages are optional but highly recommended for success. Having these assignments go out early in the year allows administration and staff to know what is expected of them and when it needs to be done. Multiple Packages can be created. Create as many as the district needs (ie New Teachers, Tenured Teachers, Assistant Principals Principals etc). Then add different forms and observations to each package using only the documents that best fit the personnel being assigned the Package. If the state has a 

Tasks

The following Tasks need to be completed in order, some tasks rely on other tasks to work correctly. Column A is the sequence in which the task should be completed, Column B is the task, Column C details what the task does and why it is needed, Column D is the Prerequisites, or what needs to be done prior to starting the task for the best result and ease of completion and column E is the approximate time needed to complete the task providing that the prerequisite are complete but may differ based on familiarity with technology and Teacher Vitae. All of these tasks have additional step by step explanations and can be accessed by clicking the Task in the Task Overview Table.

Tasks Overview

Sequence Number	Task	Details	Prerequisites	Approx Time
1	Create District Organizational Units (OU’s) REQUIRED	Organizational Units/School Buildings. All of the district's buildings need to be identified. If a school or building has a separate state ID it needs to be added to the list in the Organizational Units Manage Organization page. This includes the District Office.	Have State ID Numbers for each school building	<5 Minutes Per OU
2	Create Positions OPTIONAL	Positions are optional and can be set for employees to add information to Job History in Employee Management.	Have discussed and decided on what positions will be needed	<5 Minutes per Position
3	Setting the Current Evaluation Year REQUIRED	Before starting a new year with Teacher Vitae it is necessary to add the current year in the system. This will update the school year in all areas of Teacher Vitae.	None	<5 Minutes
4	Importing Staff REQUIRED	Staff members changes need to be changed in Teacher Vitae to make sure staff are in the right OU, the State ID’s are correct, former members are deactivated and new members are added.	Get an employee roster from HR with correct and up to date required and optional information	15 Minutes
5	Set Administrator Roles for Specific Users REQUIRED	Teacher Vitae Administrator will need to ensure that the right people have the right roles and add or remove any staff members to roles as needed.	Read and understand the Teacher Vitae Roles and Permissions. Discuss and Decide who will hold each Role	5   Minutes
6	Enter Periods SUGGESTED	Evaluation Periods are used to describe at what point of the school year an Observation or Evaluation was conducted.	None	<5 Minutes
7	Selecting Evaluation Tags SUGGESTED Selecting Employee Tags OPTIONAL	EvalTags: Evaluation Tags are used to filter questions by type based on the district approved Evaluation Framework. Emp Tags: Employee Tags can be used to group employees for easy filtering.	Eval Tags: Have a framework that has tagging or create one Emp Tags: Have discussed and decided a method to filter staff	5-10 MInutes Per Tag Family
8	Select Forms REQUIRED	Select or Create Forms to be used during the Observation and Evaluation process.	Know what Forms the district wants to use to Observe and evaluate staff	5 Minutes Per Form
9	Create Professional Development Courses SUGGESTED	Create or Enter Professional Development into Teacher Vitae	Have all links ready for Course Know Course detail	10   Minutes Per Course
10	Create Professional Development Sessions SUGGESTED	Professional Development Course can not be assigned or selected without Sessions. Sessions must be Created or Added	Have Course created and active Have timelines	5-10 Minutes Per Session
11	Create and Assign Packages SUGGESTED	Teacher Vitae Packages is a toolset to help districts manage the yearly evaluation process across all staff groups, with better scheduling, compliance tracking, and streamlining of processes from year to year. Using Vitae Packages, administrators have the ability to select, sequence, and assign role-specific required documents into a “Package.”	-Have all staff in correct OU’s -Have admins in correct Roles -Determine who is the Evaluator per OU -Determine who is the Reviewer per OU (optional) -Determine who will complete which Forms (optional: used if there will be multiple observers) -Have Periods set -Have Forms Created and Published -Have Courses created and active -Have Sessions created and active	5-10 Minutes Per Package

If you need any help or assistance in preparing for the new school year please contact us at support@silverbacklearning.zohodesk.com