Resources for Users of the Colorado Performance Management System

Superintendents, Principals, and HR/Central Office staff are welcome to join members of the Educator Effectiveness team and ask questions and problem-solve issues coming up with start of the year steps in the Colorado Performance Management System (COPMS) in RANDA. 

Beginning in August, there will be two, live, one-hour support sessions held every week - one in the morning, and one in the afternoon - for the months of August and September.

Please see the above schedule for upcoming sessions. Simply click the link to join the session at the corresponding date and time. These are drop-in sessions, so feel free to come and go as you need.

Contact your EE Regional Specialist or email educator_effectiveness@cde.state.co.us for more information.

 

COPMS Password Reset

System Resources

These resources offer information and support for users implementing the state model evaluation system and using the Colorado Performance Management System (COPMS) in RANDA. This page is organized as an example timeline of common activities within COPMS to use as organizations implement their evaluation processes. Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) using the State Model Evaluation System may also utilize the Educator Effectiveness Best Practices Timeline for a full timeline of all activities to consider.

Training and Support: COPMS Tips & Tricks Video Series

The short videos below are intended to demonstrate specific aspects of COPMS, to help users maximize their utilization of the system. You may also contact your Regional Specialist for additional support.

*Note that COPMS is a dynamic system and some content may look slightly different on your screen. The content is largely transferrable. Updated versions of these videos are forthcoming.

Login & Dashboard (updated Fall 2024)

First time logging into COPMS in RANDA? This short webinar walks through the steps of logging in for the first time and describes the different dashboard features specifically available to a Superintendent. 

Launching the School Year (updated Fall 2024)

This short webinar is intended for Superintendents looking for guidance on the initial steps needed to set up COPMS for the upcoming school year. 

Rubric Basics (updated Fall 2024)

Intended for all evaluators utilizing COPMS, this webinar breaks down the available features of the Evaluator Assessment Rubric while highlighting connection points to additional resources related to the State Model Evaluation System Teacher Rubric. 

Creating & Conducting an Observation (updated Fall 2024)

This webinar is intended for all evaluators utilizing COPMS and showcases how to create an observation in COPMS, take notes, add attachments, and share the observation with the educator. The Colorado Teacher Quality Standards Reference Guide, which is referenced during this webinar, highlights the main categories of the Evaluator Assessment Rubric. Access SSP rubric shortcuts on this webpage. 

Building & Releasing MSLs/MSOs for Individualization (soon-to-be updated)

This webinar breaks down how to create an MSL or MSO template at the superintendent level, how to release a template to schools, and how both principals and educators can access and add on to existing templates. 

Disable Accounts for Educators No Longer Employed

As the new school year begins and districts add new educators in the CDE Identity Management (IdM) system, some districts have experienced that these new educators are not always displaying within the performance management system. The most common reason for this is because the educator's previous district/BOCES has not disabled their account in IdM. Please ensure all employees no longer in your district/BOCES have their role disabled within IdM. Information about this step can be found in the Local Access Manager (LAM) Quick Reference Guide. NOTE: Do not disable educators’ roles in IdM prior to the annual system maintenance and rollover.

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Launching the New School Year

To launch the new school year for educators and evaluators to use COPMS/RANDA in support of the evaluation cycle, the following steps must be completed annually. Please note: Users will not be able to access the new year until the following steps are completed. 

1. Update staff roster and staff roles using CDE Identity Management (IdM). 

   • Only Local Access Managers or LAMs may complete this step. An overview of this step is provided on the LAM Resources – Annual Transition webpage. 

   • LAMs should disable all accounts for users that have left the organization, update roles and buildings as needed, and add users who are new to the LEA. New users can be added throughout the school year. 

   • NOTE: Changes in staff roles should not be made once the evaluation cycle is underway as any data entered into the system will be lost. Please contact educator_effectiveness@cde.state.co.us if a role assignment was made in error and discovered after the school year is launched. 

   • Additional guidance regarding role assignments and managing system users can be found on the LAM Resources – Managing Users webpage. 

2. Once the staff roster in IdM is updated and the annual system maintenance and rollover is completed – typically, completed by mid-July – the user with SI (superintendent) or AS (Executive Director) can Launch the School Year within the LEA settings in the system. 

   • NOTE: Users will not be displayed in COPMS until the day after the new year is launched due to the overnight sync between IdM and COPMS. 

   • Only users with the SI or AS role is able to perform this step.

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Update Staff Profile Interchange File 

In support of providing as accurate a staff roster as possible, and streamline data reporting to CDE, it is recommended that LEAs regularly update their Staff Profile Interchange File. Details and guidance for updating can be found on the Data Pipeline Interchanges: Staff webpage.

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Review IdM Import Status Error Report

To review the list of accounts that may be experiencing issues, and to see if any employees may need to be disabled in IdM, users with an SI/AS/HR roles can log into COPMS in RANDA and click on Administration-->IdM Import Status to review "errors" listed in the IdM Import Status Error Report. The most common error is because a new employee is still associated with their previous district/BOCES: "Error: EDID is used for more than one email". If this is the case, it will be necessary to know which district/BOCES the new employee is coming from to request that the educator in question is disabled within the system by the former district/BOCES.  Please use the LAM Assistance Request Form to send a direct request to the LAM in the new employee's former district/BOCES to disable the educator from their system.  NOTE: when completing the LAM Assistance Request Form, the name and contact information is for the person completing the form; the organization is the name of the former district/BOCES of the new employee; and the name of the new employee in question must be included within the service request.  Contact copms@cde.state.co.us for assistance as needed.

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Launch the New Year (if not done so already)

To better support educators and evaluators using COPMS in support of the evaluation cycle, the school year should be launched no later than October 15^th. Launching the school year prior to October 15th will ensure educators to have a clear understanding of evaluation requirements for your local implementation and allow for educators to complete their self-assessment and professional goal-setting in a timely manner. Find out more information about enabling the new year.

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Bulk Updating Grade/Content/Status

Users with the SI/AS/HR role can upload a file into COPMS to update grade, content area, and status (probationary [P], nonprobationary [NP]) for the entire LEA and those users with the principal (P) role can update their school roster. To do this, click on Administration-->User Information Import. Once on that page, you can click on Download Excel Template, which can give you all the users you have in the system, depending on how you ran the file. Then, you can update all the columns if you’d like based on your district information. For Status, N is nonprobationary, P is probationary, and O is other (typically at-will employees). If you’d like to update grades/contents, you can do so by updating the field to 1 if they teach it. Doing so can also help with filtering options when using reports.

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Setting Educator Quality Standard Weights

All districts/BOCES/charter schools using the COPMS in RANDA will need to set their professional practice weights no later than December 1^st. This required weight setting will ensure rating calculations are correct and that all educators know and understand how they will be evaluated under the requirements specified in State Board of Education Rule.

To finalize these settings, users with the superintendent (SI) or executive director (AS) role will need to log into their account, click on Administration-->LEA Settings-->Professional Practice Standard and complete all prompts as necessary until the bottom of the page is reached.

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Developing Measures of Student Learning/Outcomes

An overview of the requirements, guidance and considerations for creating the measures of student learning/outcomes (MSL/MSO) portion of an educator’s evaluation can be found on the Measures of Student Learning/Outcomes (MSLs/MSOs): Overview and Requirements webpage. In addition, the District/BOCES Guide for Creating MSLs/MSOs offers a step-by-step process, including examples of measures and setting success criteria (i.e., the parameters that define how the measure will be scored). 

This step should be completed and shared with educators no later than November to ensure educators understand what will be included in their evaluation for the year. 

Please contact your EE Regional Specialist or copms@cde.state.co.us for assistance with this step.

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Observations

COPMS has multiple ways in which evaluators may use the system to complete observations. Watch the video that outlines the observation features of the system for observing a Teacher.

The process of observing Principals and/or SSPs is slightly different.

Please contact your EE Regional Specialist or copms@cde.state.co.us for assistance with this step.

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Mid-Year Review

The mid-year review in the system includes optional fields where the educator and/or evaluator can add information for professional goals and also for the rubric and progress toward measures of student learning/outcomes. Additionally, the educator can indicate which of these three activities has been discussed during this connection. This is to promote conversations around professional practice, measures of student learning/outcomes, and professional growth goals are part of the mid-year conversation between the educator and their evaluator.

Additional information for Maximizing the Mid-Year Review is available on the linked webpage.

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Creating an Individualized Snapshot

COPMS allows for a "snapshot" to be taken of the Evaluator Assessment at any point during the evaluation cycle so that an evaluator may compare the progress of the educator on the rubric throughout the year.

Why use this feature? Many evaluators have expressed interest in celebrating the progress the educator has made from their mid-year review to the end-of-year review. This feature allows for the comparison of what changes have been made to the rubric from the time the snapshot was created. Review more information on how to use this feature.

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Tracking Evaluation Activities

Administrators and evaluators can browse the list of staff by clicking on the Evaluations tab. Watch this video that outlines the features of this tab.

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Email Educators from Within the System

COPMS allows emails to be sent in bulk based on the filtering charts on the Evaluations page. This can be helpful to "nudge" educators and/or evaluators to complete a specific step of the process. All users (primarily evaluators) with an "Evaluations" tab will be able to utilize this feature.

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Rating Measures of Student Learning/Outcomes

To ensure educators receive their overall ratings at least two weeks prior to the last day of school, all MSLs/MSOs will need to be scored and rated. Each MSL/MSO is set up either as an individual measure or a collective measure. Depending upon which type of measure it is, there are different ways in which to rate it.

Please contact your EE Regional Specialist or copms@cde.state.co.us for assistance with this step.

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Final Effectiveness Ratings

There are six things that need to be complete in order for final effectiveness ratings to be generated:

• The weights need to be set at the district level (which are now locked on December 15).
• The required number of observations set at the district level need to be completed and signed by both parties.
• The Mid-Year Review need to be completed and signed by both parties.
• The End-of-Year Review need to be completed and signed by both parties.
• The Evaluator Assessment needs to be completed and signed by the primary evaluator.
• The MSL/O Worksheet needs to be completed and signed by the primary evaluator.

Without all sixof these items being completed, the Final Effectiveness ratings will not be calculated. As a reminder, all educators should receive their final effectiveness rating two weeks prior to the end of the school year.

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Final Effectiveness Supervisor Approval

Written evaluation reports are required to be reviewed and signed by a supervisor of the evaluator that conducted the evaluation. The COPMS is designed to allow supervisors of evaluators to review and sign written evaluation reports within the system by clicking the “Final Effectiveness Approval” function. Each Final Effectiveness Report (FER), upon completion, will be listed in the “ready for approval” tab. Supervisors may review and approve (sign) the FERs completed by the evaluators that they supervise within COPMS for the using this feature.

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Bulk Printing Final Effectiveness Ratings (optional)

COPMS has the ability to create a "bulk PDF" of Final Effectiveness Ratings by rubric type. This is helpful for districts wishing to upload the Final Effectiveness Rating PDF for each educator into their HR system. It may also be helpful for districts who prefer to have a hard signature on file for each evaluation.

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Annual Transition Process

Local Access Managers (LAMs) are responsible for maintaining the users and their roles for the Colorado State Model Performance Management System (RANDA) in CDE's Identity Management System (IdM). For more information on the Annual Transition Process, visit the LAM webpage.

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Using data to inform professional development

June is a great time to review the information collected using charts and reports within the Colorado Performance Management System (COPMS) for the year that just ended. This information may be helpful when planning professional development for the next year as well as outlining timelines, resources and support for the next evaluation cycle.

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Updating User Information

As user information in Identity Management is updated by the district/BOCES LAM, please be sure to always update the original account rather than create a new one.

For instance, if an employee leaves and returns to your district, then you will need to find the disabled account (be sure to uncheck the box when searching indicating active users). Then, click on edit profile. If they have an end date, you will need to remove the end date, click on save, then click on re-enable and then save again.

As another example, if an educator changes their name, the LAM should locate the initial account, click on edit and then update the name and email. If they add a new account with the new name but same EDID, it will cause an error in the system.

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Submit Staff Evaluation Snapshot 

Annual collection of evaluation ratings for licensed personnel is completed through the Staff Evaluation Snapshot. This snapshot is a combination of data from the Staff Profile Interchange File and the Staff Evaluation Snapshot Report. Download the SES report from within COPMS, ensure the data is complete and accurate prior to uploading to the CDE data pipeline. 

While the data submission deadline is October 15^th each year, districts/BOCES are strongly encouraged to complete the data submission as a part of their end-of-year activities once all evaluations are completed for the school year. 

For technical questions about this collection, please contact StaffEvaluation@cde.state.co.us

For technical questions about COPMS (RANDA), please contact copms@cde.state.co.us 

For general questions around educator evaluations, please contact educator_effectiveness@cde.state.co.us