Tennessee Department of Education reminds portfolio leads of May 5 deadline, scoring rules and peer-review process

The Tennessee Department of EducationEducator Effectiveness team held virtual office hours for district portfolio leads to review how to support teachers using the TN Portfolio platform, including roster verification, monitoring completion status, scoring mechanics, peer-review procedures and platform limitations.

The session focused on why timely and correct portfolio submissions matter: an incomplete portfolio receives no growth score and "without a growth score, teachers will not generate an LOE for the school year," the presenter said. District administrators were told the firm deadline for completion is May 5 at 5:00 p.m. Central time and that "there will be no extension past 5PM on May 5." The team also advised portfolio leads that departmental email support (portfolio.questions) is not routinely monitored on weekends and urged teachers not to wait until the weekend before the deadline.

The team reviewed where district administrators can find roster and submission information. District administrators should check the District Portfolio Teacher Report in the platform to confirm active rosters and the District Collection Report to inspect collection-level details. The presenter noted that roster verification forms should already be submitted and that late additions are limited: "If you have found since you've submitted that a teacher has been left off...those are the only ones we can add is if a teacher's been there all year." Administrators should notify the team about resignations or teachers who are PYE so those accounts can be removed from the active roster.

Officials explained how completion and scoring are displayed and why some columns may not appear in downloaded CSVs prior to score release. The presenter pointed out that percent-complete and self-score fields "will be available once the scores are released" and that district administrators may see a teacher flagged as "complete" on the teacher report even if the collection-level percent-complete and self-score columns are not yet exposed in exports.

The session summarized portfolio composition and scoring. Every teacher has four collections (physical education is an exception with six student samples). For each collection teachers provide three student samples (emerging, proficient, advanced) with a point A (baseline) and point B (later) for each sample. The growth for a collection is calculated from the average differences between point A and point B across samples; the presenter illustrated how those averages map to collection-level growth levels and how the four collection-level results are averaged to produce a final portfolio growth score and level.

The team described how peer review interacts with teacher self scores. Teachers must self-score their samples; the self score is used to determine consensus. The first peer reviewerwhose score is compared to the teacher self scoremay produce a consensus result. If there is a discrepancy, a second peer reviewer is assigned; if a second reviewer still does not produce consensus, the collection goes to an expert reviewer whose score is final. The presenter explained: "An expert reviewer score is final." The platform will later show how many reviewers saw a collection and the reviewer scores in the collection and sample reports after score release.

Peer-review recruitment, pay and schedule were covered. Applications are being accepted through close of business March 28; peer review scoring will run from May 27 until June 13. Selected peer reviewers must attend two required trainings and are paid $20 per collection they score; they must score at least 20 collections to be paid. The presenter said the team will notify administrators when selections are made.

The office hours addressed common reasons student work cannot be scored: evidence not aligned to the listed standard (for example, reading work uploaded to a numeracy collection), missing required evidence such as a video when the rubric requires one, missing required answer keys, using different students for point A and point B within a sample, reusing the same student across multiple samples in a single collection, or uploading blank files. The presenter noted: "If student work is marked cannot be scored, then both a and b receive this score. If we can't score a, then we're not scoring b or vice versa. We cannot show growth if 1 a or b cannot be scored."

The team additionally flagged technical issues district leads should watch: files uploaded between Jan. 30 and Feb. 5 must be reuploaded (this affects videos, JPEGs and other files uploaded during that window). The platform currently cannot reliably preview .docx files; administrators were advised to have teachers convert such files to PDF before uploading. For technical or policy questions, the team directed users to the portfolio.questions inbox and to resources on the Educator Effectiveness team website, including the guidebook for administrators and teachers, the teacher guidance and FAQ, platform instructional videos, and recordings and slides from office hours.

In a question-and-answer exchange, a district administrator (Laura Duncan, Murray) reported that her teacher roster dashboard and CSVs showed some teachers as "complete" while their collection report did not show percent-complete or self-score values. The presenter confirmed that percent-complete and self-score columns are not available in collection exports until scores are released and said the team would follow up if there is a platform fix before the April office hour.

Next steps the team asked portfolio leads to take: verify district rosters in the platform, share the team guidance documents and videos with teachers, monitor collection reports after score release for discrepancies, remind teachers of the May 5 5:00 p.m. Central deadline, encourage teachers not to wait until the weekend before the deadline and to contact portfolio.questions promptly for issues. The team said the April office hour (scheduled for April 17) will review additional reports and (one week before teacher release) show where leads can find teacher scores on the portfolio lead release date.

This session did not include formal votes or policy changes; the presentation reiterated existing state board policy and team guidance and clarified reporting workflows, deadlines and platform practices.