A Message from Dr. McCormick 10/13/17

 

Indiana Department of Education
Friday, October 13, 2017

 

Dear Educators:

Thank you for the work you do each day in partnering with stakeholders to ensure a quality education for all Indiana students. Your dedication to the field is appreciated. The Department of Education is committed to your success, and we are honored to be serving with all of you.

Sincerely,
Dr. Jennifer McCormick
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Indiana Department of Education

Dr. Jennifer McCormick

Assessment
ISTEP+ Online Updates Summary: This memo outlines all of the online testing updates that will be in effect for the 2017-2018 school year, as noted in Dr. McCormick’s mail, recent CTC listservs, and Pearson trainings. Please contact the Office of Student Assessment or the Pearson Help Desk (866-683-6668) if you have questions about any of these updates.

NEW! Instructional Supports Available: ISTEP+ Grade 10 Math and ELA test blueprints now contain more information to help guide schools as they prepare students for the assessments. In addition, a document containing ELA passage specifications is now available on our website. These new/updated resources have been reformatted to match the structure of the new science and item specifications documents.

ISTEP+ Blank Practice Forms are also available for instructional use on our website. These forms offer the platform functionality, but can be used with an educator’s own items, bell ringers, or activities. Browser functionality also allows these to be printed to capture student responses on the blank forms.

Office of eLearning
The 2018 Summer of eLearning grant application is open now through October 27, 2017. Last year, the grants supported 22 eLearning conferences around our state, providing opportunities for thousands of Indiana educators to learn about teaching and learning in technology-rich environments. Click here to learn more and apply to host a world-class professional learning opportunity in your district.

Office of Special Education (OSE)
OSE and Virtuoso Education have partnered to create a new Short Share video on Implicit Bias. All Short Share videos this year include TIPS: tools, interventions, processes, and/or strategies, related to the topics from our conceptual framework. Please click here to view the Implicit Bias Short Share.

OSE has been leading an effort to examine the Certificate of Completion. The Certificate is a document presented to students with an IEP that have been removed from a diploma path. For the past two years, a group of stakeholders from schools, the Indiana Resource Network, Workforce Development, Vocational Rehabilitation, INSOURCE, ICASE and others have been meeting regularly to develop a course of study that outlines requirements for the Certificate of Completion that mirror a regular high school diploma. The revised Certificate of Completion requirements will meet new ESSA regulations for providing all students access to academic content standards and will become effective for the 2018-2019 freshman class. Be on the lookout for more information and guidance around this change. For a more detailed explanation of the Certificate of Completion, please read the Director's Newsletter, or watch this video.


Stay Up-to-Date
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A message from Dr. McCormick will be sent every Friday.