Getting a School Ready for Observations

Before an observer can start an observation at a school, that school needs all of the following in place:

• Enable Observations? turned on for the school
• At least one active class period, one active grade level, and one active content area attached
• At least one active member of the school who can be observed (a teacher with the observable role)
• At least one active observation form set holding a form that is granted to the school, published, and active, both on its own and in that form set. The school’s grant must be active and inside its availability dates.

Until every one of these is true, the school does not appear when an observer starts an observation. If the school is the only one the observer works in, New Observation does not appear in the observer’s menu either. This is the first thing to check at the start of a school year, when a new school opens, or when a principal reports “I can’t start an observation at my building.”

Role: system administrator. Attaching a form to a form set also needs the publisher role; see Adding Forms to Form Sets.

Opening the school’s page

1. Click the gear icon to open System Administration.
2. Under GENERAL, click Organizations/Groups.
3. Click the school’s name.

The top of the page summarizes the school. When Observe is on for your district, it shows Observations Enabled: and lists the school’s Class periods:, Grade Levels:, and Content Areas:. The tabs below hold Users, Sub Organizations, Content Areas, Class Periods, Grade Levels, and Form Grants.

Reading the requirements list

When a school is not ready, the summary shows Requirements to enable observations: with each missing piece in red:

Red item	What to do
Turn on Enable Observations?	Set Enable Observations? to Yes in the school’s Edit Organization window.
Active class periods	Attach an active class period on the Class Periods tab, or reactivate one already attached.
Active grade levels	Attach an active grade level on the Grade Levels tab, or reactivate one already attached.
Active content areas	Attach an active content area on the Content Areas tab, or reactivate one already attached.
Active users that can be observed	Add a teacher with the observable role to the school’s Users tab, or reactivate a teacher’s account.
An active observation form set with a granted, published form	Grant a form to the school and make sure an active observation form set holds it. See Grant forms below.

The last item covers every part of form access at once. It shows when the school has no grant, when its grants are archived or outside their availability dates, when the granted forms are archived or unpublished, or when no active observation form set holds one of them as an active form. A grant to the district alone does not count for its schools. To find which part is missing, work through Why Can’t an Observer Find a Form?

In the example below, District Office has its class periods, grade levels, content areas, and forms, but no one there can be observed, so it lists Active users that can be observed.

On a phone-size screen these summary columns are hidden, so check from a computer or tablet.

When everything is in place, the requirements list disappears.

Turn on Enable Observations?

1. On the school’s page, click Edit.
2. In the Edit Organization window, set Enable Observations? to Yes.
3. Click Save.

The same window has Class Periods, Grade Levels, and Content Areas boxes, so you can attach all three here as well. Turn Enable Observations? off for an organization you never want observed, such as a central office, so it stays out of observers’ school lists.

Attach class periods, grade levels, and content areas

Your district keeps one list of each (see Class Periods, Content Areas, and Grade Levels). Each school attaches the ones it uses, and the observation form at that school offers only those.

1. Open the Class Periods, Grade Levels, or Content Areas tab.
2. Click Attach.
3. In the box, click to add items. Only active items are offered. Items already attached appear in the box.
4. Click Save.

The box holds the school’s full list. Removing an item from the box and saving detaches it from the school.

To detach a single item, use the unlink icon on its row (on Class Periods, … > Unlink), then Yes, Remove or Remove to confirm. Detaching does not change past observations.

If the item does not exist yet, click New on the tab. The item is added to the district list and attached to this school in one step.

Make sure someone can be observed

A school counts as having “active users that can be observed” when at least one of its active members has the observable role (User can be observed. on the user’s form). On the observation form, the User dropdown lists the active members of that school with that role.

Membership is per organization. A teacher whose Authorized Organizations include only the district, and not the school, does not appear in that school’s User dropdown. To add teachers, use Attach or New on the school’s Users tab, or edit each user. See Managing Users and Organizations.

Grant forms

A school can use a form only when the form is granted to that school. Grants belong to one organization: a form granted to the district is not available at its schools, and a new school starts with no forms. To roll out a district-wide instrument, grant it on the district’s Form Grants tab and choose the schools in the Member organizations list, or click Select all. To pilot a form at one elementary, grant it on that school’s tab only.

The Form Grants tab lists every form granted to the school, with each grant’s Status and Availability. To grant a form to the school:

1. On the Form Grants tab, click Grant.
2. Choose a form from the Form list.
3. Click Grant Access.

A grant can carry a start and end date to match your evaluation calendar, for example a mid-year walkthrough form that opens on the first day of the second semester and closes on the last day of school. Observers cannot start an observation with a form outside its dates. A system administrator at the top level of the account sets the dates. For dates, archiving a grant, and passing a district’s forms to a new school with Grant to Members, see Managing Form Access for Organizations.

Troubleshooting

New Observation is missing from the menu

New Observation appears for a user who has the observer role and belongs to at least one active school that meets every requirement above. Check these in order:

1. The observer role. Open the user and confirm Performs observations. is checked.
2. The observer’s schools. Confirm the user’s Authorized Organizations include the school, or an organization above it.
3. The school. Open the school’s page and read the Requirements to enable observations list. Fix each red item.
4. The school is active. An inactive school never counts.

The menu is checked each time a page loads, so the observer sees the link on the next page they open.

The school dropdown is empty or missing a school

When an observer clicks New Observation, the Create Observation window lists, under Organization, only the schools in the observer’s organizations that meet every requirement above. A missing school has a red item on its page or is outside the observer’s Authorized Organizations.

If the window says “You currently do not have schools assigned to your profile,” none of the observer’s schools are ready. Start with the requirements list on each of the observer’s schools.

A form set or form is missing from the dropdown

The Form Set dropdown lists the active observation form sets that hold at least one form the school can use today, by the same rule as the requirements list. A school that shows in the Organization list always has at least one form set to offer. When the form set you expected is not there, its forms are not available to this school: work through Why Can’t an Observer Find a Form? for that form set.

Related

• Class Periods, Content Areas, and Grade Levels
• Conducting Observations
• Form Sets Overview
• Adding Forms to Form Sets
• Managing Form Access for Organizations
• Managing Users and Organizations
• Observe Settings