Westonka Public Schools Switches to Vector Evaluations+

Westonka Public Schools Switches to Vector Evaluations+ to Simplify Management of Teacher and Staff Evaluations

The Customer

Westonka Public Schools in Minnesota

The Challenge

Automate the process of managing teacher and staff evaluations. Leaders of this 2,300-student school district were spending a significant amount of time completing a number of manual tasks to manage teacher evaluations. For instance, the district has a 3-year evaluation program, but the system it was previously using to manage evaluations required administrators to manually set it up each year for each teacher.

Simplify the training for administrators and teachers on how to manage evaluations. The platform the district was using to manage staff evaluations was not intuitive so the assistant superintendent was spending time creating quick-guides with screenshots to help administrators and teachers use it. The district was looking for a way to make it easier and faster to train its staff members on how to manage evaluations.

Reduce the reliance on tech support to make changes to the evaluation management system. District leaders would often find themselves calling tech support to help them figure out how to update data within the staff evaluations system and wanted a way to more easily make adjustments when needed.

The Choice

The district switched to Vector Evaluations+ in order to:

• Simplify and automate the process of managing staff evaluations.
• Reduce the reliance on tech support to make changes within the evaluation management system.
• Provide an evaluation management system that is reasonably priced, easy to implement and more intuitive for administrators and teachers.
• Ensure the district would have responsive technical support during and after implementation. The district had a complex set-up but the Vector support team made sure the transition and implementation went smoothly. This support was an important factor for the district making the switch.

The Change

The district now has an evaluations management system that better meets the needs of administrators and staff members by:

• Saving time. The Evaluations+ platform is user-friendly and intuitive requiring minimal training of staff and eliminating the need for manual tasks.
• Reducing technology headaches. The assistant superintendent can easily get into the platform to make simple revisions when needed without being dependent on the company to make those changes.
• Providing ease and convenience. The district appreciates the many user-friendly features of Evaluations+ which has made the task of managing evaluations easier and more convenient. Features include:
  • A dashboard which provides an easy view of who has accomplished evaluation tasks and who has not.
  • The ability to do mass emails with different customizable templates to make it easy to send group messages to staff.
  • An easy way to post reference documents and training screencasts within the platform.
  • A staff view of past, present and future evaluation tasks for their entire 3-year evaluation cycle to help with planning.
  • The ability of the platform to adapt to the district’s teacher evaluation requirements. Mark Femrite, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, called this feature “a game-changer. Most evaluation tools we reviewed were not able to accomplish this well.”

“Because of the up-front investment by Vector Solutions with our school district, we are experiencing a very successful implementation of the platform. This has resulted in our school district wanting to expand the use of Vector Evaluations+ with other staff groups,” said Femrite.

Vector Evaluations+ is a customizable online program that simplifies the management of staff evaluations so administrators have more time to focus on the people. It helps administrators:

• Manage observations, evaluation documents, and deadlines in one central location from any device at any time.
• Track progress, manage compliance, and access data-driven metrics with customized dashboards and reports.
• Use video observation in lieu of in-person observations and provide feedback.