Portrait: A 5-Photo Challenge to Start Visiting Classrooms Today
Portrait gets principals into classrooms and fully set up in Repertoire in a single session — 5 photos, 15 minutes, free.
Free — No Membership Required
Portrait
A 5-photo challenge that gets you into classrooms today—and sets up your observation tools along the way.
Most onboarding asks you to watch videos before you do anything real. Portrait flips that. You take five photos, and by the end you’ve visited a classroom, loaded your teacher roster, and configured your observation tools—all in a single session.
The 5 Photos
The Door
A classroom door from the hallway. Walk to a classroom, take a photo, then step inside for two minutes. Zero notes, zero rubric—just go. This photo proves you can walk through the door. The hardest part of a walkthrough practice is starting.
The Work
Something a student is working on—a worksheet, notebook, laptop screen, or project. This shifts your attention from the teacher to student learning. Instead of watching the performance at the front, you’re asking: what are students actually doing right now?
The List
Your staff roster—from a printed list, spreadsheet, or directory. AI extracts teacher names and creates your observation roster automatically. Your abstract commitment to “get into classrooms” becomes a concrete list of people to visit.
The Board
A whiteboard or chalkboard showing the current lesson. This captures the teacher’s intent. When you have both The Board and The Work from the same visit, you can see alignment: did students do what the teacher planned? That’s the beginning of a real feedback conversation.
The Framework
Your teacher evaluation rubric—Danielson, Marzano, your state framework, or a district rubric. AI identifies the framework and populates your feedback tool with framework-aligned observation language. Now your feedback speaks a shared professional language from day one.
What you’ll have when you’re done
Your first classroom visit logged
Your full staff roster loaded and ready to observe
Observation language aligned to your evaluation framework
Repertoire fully configured and ready to use
Takes about 15 minutes. Start any time—no training modules required.
Start Portrait Now — It’s Free
No credit card. No membership required. Just five photos and you’re ready to go.
Take the Portrait Challenge →What is Repertoire?
Portrait sets you up in Repertoire—the classroom walkthrough and feedback app built into the Instructional Leadership Association. With your roster and framework loaded, you can visit any teacher, write feedback in under a minute using reusable snippets, and send it from your own email before you reach the next classroom.
Learn about ILA membership →