On November 19th, KickUp brought together HR leaders with two experts who've spent decades in the trenches of teacher evaluation: Jennifer Barnes from The Danielson Group and Steve Pearce, Chief Human Resources Officer at Batavia Public Schools. Andria Schulte from KickUp joined to share how the right technology can support—not replace—evaluator judgment.
The conversation was refreshingly practical—no theoretical frameworks, just honest talk about what actually works when you're managing evaluations for new and veteran teachers, struggling with calibration drift, and trying to connect evaluation results to meaningful support.
Here are some of the highlights.
Jennifer Barnes breaks down the essential components of effective evaluations—from evidence collection routines to the 48-hour feedback rule that builds teacher trust. She also tackles a problem seen across the country: evaluators who default to "proficient" to avoid difficult conversations, and why focusing on specific practices instead of overall teacher ratings changes everything.
Steve Pearce breaks down how evaluation focus should shift based on experience—first-year teachers need direction on classroom management and communication basics, while 15-year veterans benefit from reflective feedback on advanced strategies they may have never formally learned. The key is making it about professional goals and interaction, not just compliance checklists.
Jennifer Barnes explains how to tier support based on where teachers actually are—not just their evaluation scores. She breaks down the difference between a struggling first-year teacher who needs daily 10-minute check-ins, a strong veteran navigating a new building, and an experienced teacher ready to co-construct their own growth. The key insight: "'Basic' isn't you as a teacher—it's a specific practice we saw a snapshot of."
Steve Pearce shares what drew Batavia to KickUp after years with a system that couldn't aggregate evaluation data district-wide. Without real visibility into patterns across schools or components, decisions defaulted to individual school goals or administrator intuition. Now, with access to actual data showing where teachers need support, Batavia can make focused, depersonalized decisions about PD and coaching—targeting specific teams, grade levels, or practice areas based on evidence, not opinion.
Andria Schulte demonstrates how KickUp's dashboards help leaders move from evaluation results to action. The tool surfaces district-wide patterns—like hotspots in specific framework components—then lets you drill down by school and individual teacher. Leaders can quickly see whether goal-setting, PD offerings, and coaching time align with identified needs, then adjust support accordingly. At year's end, growth heat maps answer the critical question: did our efforts actually change practice?
Jennifer Barnes and Steve Pearce offer their final advice for HR leaders. Jennifer recommends revisiting your professional learning plan to ensure evaluation feedback connects to actual support. Steve reframes the conversation: stop thinking summative, start thinking formative. The magic happens when evaluations feel less like compliance and more like reflective feedback that changes practice.
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