SDE: Website Informaiton, A-F Fact Sheet, Board Highlights

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A Note About Our New Website

Dear Superintendents,

Over the past few months, we've been engaged in an exciting project — the rolling launch of a new website for the State Department of Education. Back in December, we first shared this site as a preview available for you to view, navigate and to provide feedback to us. Recently, we made the permanent switch to this new site.

Most of the feedback we've received since the beginning of our launch has been very positive — you've told us that the new site is easier to navigate, that it has a cleaner and crisper look and feel, and that we're providing more interactive and multimedia content. A bonus to the new website: behind the scenes is it involves a new decentralized content management system, meaning that staff across the State Department of Education can now quickly update information on the site to be more responsive to your needs and more timely. Since each division in the State Department of Education is able to update its own information, we also want you to feel free to contact directly the division from which you are seeking information.

With any new website there will be some hiccups. Here are a few issues we've discovered, and we wanted to let you know what we are doing to address them:

  1. We’ve discovered a filtering problem. If you are using the Untangle filter in your district, the website may not be loading properly for you. There may be additional filters that are causing problems of which we are not yet aware. If you know of one, please let us know. If you need it for filtering purposes, our new IP address is: 204.87.106.2.
  2. Some districts were confused by a "login" button that appeared on the top of the homepage. This was a login for our website administrators only. We have worked with the Office of State Finance, which manages our "ok.gov" presence, to remove this link, and it no longer appears on the homepage. 
  3. For those who were confused by this "login" button, you were probably trying to access the School District Reporting Site (SDRS). There are links throughout the website to this site. Additionally, there is a link near the top of the homepage on the left as well as one under the resources button on the main menu bar, which is under the scrolling banners at the top of the homepage.
  4. Some individuals have found "bad links" when they tried to link from a dated PDF document from the past. If you're having trouble locating information on the new site, we've created a new A-Z website guide. This gives a list of all links on our website. A link to the A-Z website guide is also available on the homepage near the top.
  5. While the most critical information is available on the site, we remain in the process of loading information onto our website. Expect updates daily. Among the items that will be coming soon are FERPA reports. We are also working with data.ok.gov to make all reports more user-friendly and more accessible.

If there is something you still cannot locate, do contact us via http://www.ok.gov/sde/webform/contact.
 

A-F Facts

The State Board of Education on March 29 approved permanent administrative rules for the new A-F School Grading System.

The rules approved by the board on Thursday give guidance to districts to implement the specifics of the law that was enacted last year. Public comment was received during a 30-day period and during a public forum and incorporated into the rules.


We will be providing a comprehensive workbook to districts in the coming weeks that will give additional guidance on calculating school grades. In the meantime, we have a developed a fact sheet that gives answers to several of the myths about the grading system. 

 

Board Highlights

In addition to A-F rules, the State Board of Education also heard a presentation Thursday about the state's C3 Partnership Schools. The SDE has identified seven schools throughout the state from among the more than 70 Priority Schools as the most in need of intervention to address low-performance. The Board will consider approving this list at a special meeting April 9. 

Read additional Board meeting highlights.