Tennessee Department of Education briefs district portfolio leads on submission deadline, file-format and conversion guidance

Presenter, a Tennessee Department of Education staff member, walked district portfolio leads through how to use the department’s portfolio platform reporting tools and reminded leads of technical and deadline requirements for teacher submissions.

The presenter opened by asking attendees to "type any questions that come to mind in the chat," noting that Micah would monitor the chat and either answer questions or read them aloud at the end of the presentation.

The session focused first on the district portfolio teacher report available under district administrator access. The presenter said leads can view a dashboard showing each teacher’s status (not started, in progress or complete) and can download a CSV that becomes available a few minutes after request for offline filtering and sorting.

Staff demonstrated the "view teacher submissions" function. Leads can filter submissions by teacher name and open each submission to verify that the teacher uploaded the required evidence for the selected standard (for example, a writing product and answer key versus a required video). The presenter stressed that leads should confirm the method of evidence matches the rubric for the chosen standard.

The presenter described common file-format and conversion issues: MOV video files are converted in the platform background and "are not viewable immediately," often taking at least 24 hours and, during peak upload periods, up to 48 hours or longer; in some cases staff have seen conversion take nearly 48 hours. If a submitted MOV still shows only the .mov label and does not display an MP4 extension on the platform, the video is still in conversion. If a MOV has been in place for more than about a week and remains unconverted, the presenter said leads should encourage the teacher to remove and re-upload the file.

On document files, staff advised that DOCX files sometimes go straight to downloads and may not preview for peer reviewers. The presenter recommended that teachers save DOCX answer keys or student work as PDF and re-upload so the files will pop up in the browser for reviewers; the department’s IT team is working on the DOCX behavior.

The presenter also reviewed platform safeguards: once a teacher selects a standard, student work is tied to that standard; a lead can change a selected standard only if no student work has been uploaded. If scored student work is removed and replaced, leads should click "save and score" to ensure the correct self-scores remain. The presenter warned that removing scored work without replacing it will not remove the scored entry unless a replacement is provided, a safety feature intended to prevent accidental loss of scored evidence.

For Pre-K through second grade reading collections, the presenter emphasized that context narratives are not used: instead the platform provides fields for the text title and author and requires an answer key as the method of evidence. The presenter said rubric guidance (levels and required evidence types) appears in the portfolio teacher guidance materials and the platform’s guidance pages.

On deadlines and final status, the presenter said, "The platform will not take submissions after 05:00 on May." The presenter clarified that a complete portfolio requires four collections with required uploads and self-scored point A and point B samples. If a teacher is not complete by May 5 at 05:00, the presenter said the portfolio will be marked incomplete and "an incomplete in the individual gross score will not generate an LOE for that school year." Leads were urged to monitor teacher status, remind teachers not to wait until the deadline, and to note that tech support response is limited on weekends.

Next steps the presenter listed included monitoring completion status, sharing the PowerPoint with teachers, and sending technical or policy questions to portfolio.questions@tn.gov. The presenter also noted an upcoming portfolio lead office hour on May 22 to review score reports when released and listed other department contacts (educator effectiveness team, licensure, TASSEL, universal reading screener, assessment team) for related questions.

Ending: The presenter closed by reiterating the key actions for leads—check dashboard status, confirm required evidence types and file previews, encourage early submission to avoid conversion delays, and route unresolved technical problems to portfolio.questions@tn.gov.