Welcome to Ascend, Lebra's professional development and employee evaluation management system. Whether you're setting up evaluations for the first time or looking to understand how all the pieces fit together, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know.
What is Ascend?
Ascend is Lebra's comprehensive solution for managing employee evaluations and professional growth in K-12 school districts. It brings together everything you need to:
Conduct classroom observations — Both formal walkthroughs and informal check-ins
Create professional development plans — Help staff set and track growth goals
Generate summative reports — Synthesize a year's worth of observations into comprehensive evaluations
Enable self-reflection — Let employees assess their own performance against standards
Track evaluation timelines — Ensure all required evaluations happen on schedule
Think of Ascend as your evaluation command center. Instead of juggling spreadsheets, paper forms, and email chains, everything lives in one connected system.
Understanding the Building Blocks
Before diving into setup, let's make sure we're speaking the same language. Ascend has several interconnected concepts, and understanding how they relate to each other is key to using the system effectively.
Roles: The Foundation of Everything
What are roles? Roles represent the different job positions in your district — Teacher, Principal, Counselor, Instructional Coach, Custodian, and so on. In Ascend, roles are the foundation because different positions require completely different evaluation criteria.
Why does this matter? Think about it: the indicators you'd use to evaluate a 3rd-grade teacher are vastly different from those you'd use for a school counselor or building principal. A teacher might be evaluated on classroom management and student engagement, while a counselor is evaluated on crisis intervention and student support services.
The key insight: Each role gets its own complete evaluation framework — its own domains, its own standards, and potentially its own rating scale. This means your teachers can be on a 4-point rubric while your administrators might use a 3-point scale, or your support staff might have an entirely different framework.
Domains: Organizing Your Evaluation Areas
What are domains? Domains are the major categories that group your evaluation criteria. Think of them as the "chapters" in your evaluation framework.
Example for a Teacher role:
Domain 1: Planning and Preparation
Domain 2: Classroom Environment
Domain 3: Instruction
Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities
Example for a Counselor role:
Domain 1: Student Support Services
Domain 2: Crisis Prevention and Intervention
Domain 3: Academic and Career Planning
Domain 4: Collaboration and Advocacy
The relationship: Each domain belongs to ONE specific role. When you create domains, you're building out the evaluation framework for that particular position.
Components: The Specific "What" You're Evaluating
What are components? Components are similar to what you may call "standards"; these are the specific competencies, skills, or behaviors you're evaluating within each domain.
How they're numbered: Components follow a numbering system that connects them to their parent domain:
Component 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 belong to Domain 1
Component 2.1, 2.2 belong to Domain 2
And so on...
Example for Domain 1 (Planning and Preparation):
Component 1.1: Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy
Component 1.2: Knowledge of Students
Component 1.3: Setting Instructional Outcomes
Component 1.4: Designing Coherent Instruction
Component 1.5: Designing Student Assessments
Mandatory vs. Optional: Some standards can be marked as "mandatory," meaning they must be scored in every observation. Others are optional and can be selected based on what's observed.
Rubrics: How You Score Performance
What are rubrics? Rubrics define your rating scale — the levels of performance you use when scoring observations and evaluations.
The default 4-point scale: When you enable Ascend, you automatically get a 4-point rubric:
1 - Unsatisfactory: Does not meet expectations
2 - Developing: Approaching expectations, needs improvement
3 - Effective: Meets expectations consistently
4 - Highly Effective: Exceeds expectations, exemplary practice
The big question: How do rubrics connect to roles?
This is where many people get confused, so let's be crystal clear:
Rubrics are attached at the component level, not directly to roles. Here's the chain:
Role → Domains → Standards → Rubric Descriptions
This means:
You create a role (e.g., "Teacher")
You add domains to that role (e.g., "Instruction")
You add standards to those domains (e.g., "Classroom Management")
Each standard can have rubric-level descriptions specific to that standard
The Evaluation Documents
Now that you understand the building blocks, let's look at the actual evaluation documents you'll create and manage in Ascend.
Observations: Capturing What You See
What are observations? Observations are documented records of classroom visits or performance episodes. They're the foundation of your evaluation data.
Two types of observations:
Formal Observations:
Full, structured evaluation with domains and standards
Observer selects which standards to assess
Can include scoring (if enabled for your organization)
Requires employee signature
Workflow: Draft → Submitted → Sent for Signature → Signed
Informal Observations:
Quick feedback or check-in notes
Brief format (think: a helpful note after a walk-through)
Sent directly to the employee
No formal signature required
Great for frequent, lightweight feedback
What's captured in a formal observation:
Strengths noted
Growth opportunities
Recommended action steps
Full observation narrative
Per-standard scores (optional)
File attachments (lesson plans, student work, etc.)
Observation Relations: Who Observes Whom
What are observation relations? Before you can create observations, you need to define who is assigned to evaluate whom. These assignments are called "observation relations."
What you define:
Observer: The administrator or evaluator conducting observations
Observed Person: The employee being evaluated
Frequency: How often observations should occur (Monthly, Quarterly, or Annually)
Primary Evaluator: Is this the main evaluator for this employee?
Why frequency matters: Setting frequency expectations helps you track whether evaluations are on schedule. If someone is scheduled for quarterly observations, you can easily check whether they're overdue.
Multiple observers: An employee can have multiple observers. For example:
Principal = Primary evaluator (quarterly observations)
Assistant Principal = Secondary observer (informal check-ins)
Instructional Coach = Additional feedback provider
Summative Reports: The Big Picture Evaluation
What are summative reports? Summative reports are comprehensive, typically annual evaluations that synthesize all observation data into a final assessment. Think of this as the "final grade" for the evaluation period.
What makes them different from observations:
Observations capture a single moment in time
Summative reports look at the whole picture across multiple observations
What's included:
Key strengths demonstrated over the evaluation period
Areas of growth identified
Evidence of impact on student learning
Standard-by-standard scores with justifications
Links to supporting observations
The workflow: Draft → Submitted → Sent for Signature → Signed
AI assistance: Ascend can optionally help generate summative report content by analyzing linked observations. This gives evaluators a starting point that they can edit and personalize.
Self-Evaluations: Employee Self-Reflection
What are self-evaluations? Self-evaluations give employees the opportunity to assess their own performance against the standards. This is a valuable part of the evaluation process because it:
Encourages self-reflection
Surfaces the employee's perspective
Identifies alignment or gaps between self-perception and evaluator assessment
Creates a foundation for growth conversations
What employees provide:
Comments per domain reflecting on their practice
Self-assigned scores per standard
Artifacts and evidence (lesson plans, student work, certificates, etc.)
AI can optionally summarize uploaded artifacts
The workflow: Draft → Submitted → Sent for Signature → Signed
PDPs (Professional Development Plans): Looking Forward
What are PDPs? PDPs — Professional Development Plans — are forward-looking documents where employees identify areas for growth and create action plans. While observations and summatives look at past performance, PDPs focus on future improvement.
What's included in a PDP:
Areas of growth: What competencies will you focus on improving?
Action steps: What specific actions will you take?
Support needed: What resources, training, or mentoring do you need?
Impact on student growth: How will your development benefit students?
Selected standards: Which standards are you targeting for growth?
The workflow: Draft → Submitted
Customizing the name: If your district doesn't call it a "PDP," you can customize the terminology. Navigate to Settings → Ascend Hub and look for the "Customize PDP Naming Convention" section. Some districts call it:
Professional Growth Plan (PGP)
Individual Development Plan (IDP)
Professional Learning Plan (PLP)