Question of the Week
Q: Have additional data been released in Open House?
A: The Supplemental Data section of Open House has been updated with data from 2020:
Assessment
- The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to report English Learner (EL) Attainment. The spreadsheet allows users to choose schools and districts by grade and total school.
- The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to report demographic data that is able to be cross-tabulated by the performance of students. Available in Open House today, research files will be provided. The 4- and 5-year graduation rates are available. The spreadsheets allow users to choose multiple student demographic groups for comparison. Having all the data in one place allows for ease of comparison.
Learning Environment
- Graduation Rate Data trends for both 4-year and 5-year
- Dropout trend data for both 9-12 and 7-12
#WIDA Social Media Followers
WIDA has changed social media handles:
Why the change? WIDA is proud to be part of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. WIDA has grown over the years and wants to be representative of all that they offer. WIDA strives to provide multilingual learners – of all ages and all levels of language development, in programs and classrooms around the world – with an equitable opportunity to obtain a quality education that leverages their assets. WIDA does this through the products and services offered by the WIDA Consortium, WIDA Early Years, WIDA Español and the WIDA International School Consortium.
If districts currently follow WIDA on any of these social media platforms, there is no need to make any change, the account will continue to follow their new handles. If districts want to tag a Twitter post, remember to use the new handle and tag @WIDA_UW so that districts can connect to WIDA!
DRC Planned Outage
A planned system outage affecting WIDA Assessment Management System (AMS) will take place Saturday, Dec. 5 at 11 p.m. CT to Sunday, Dec. 6 at 11 a.m. CT. WIDA and Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) apologizes for any inconvenience caused by this routine maintenance. District Assessment Coordinators (DACs) will need to share this with the District Technology Coordinator (DTC) in the district.
Kentucky Alternate Assessment Instructional Supports for KAS-AA Targets
The low incidence consultants from each regional special education cooperative across the state have worked together all summer and most of the fall to release some amazing instructional resources linked to the Kentucky Academic Standards (KAS)-Alternate Assessment (AA) Targets. The documents for reading, writing and mathematics are complete. Social studies will be released at a later date, so continue to check back at the site for more resources to come.
On the Kentucky (KY) Alternate Assessment cooperative site, the KAS-AA Targets Instructional Supports provide a thorough breakdown of the standards and target support resources. This site offers more than just direct standards for instructional resources, you can also find links to videos explaining how to use the Kentucky Standards.org website, links to KDE Edcast videos and the standards implementation webcast videos shared by the department just to name a few.
Another amazing support found on this site is a breakdown of the Kentucky Academic Standards-Alternate Assessment Target progressions. This site provides a common link between standards across grade bands and the significance of the instructional bonds from grade to grade.
For specific questions about any of these resources please contact your regional special education cooperative Low Incidence Consultant.
ACT - Select Test Date - Deadline Nov. 30
As a reminder, the deadline to complete the Select the Test Date is Nov. 30. DACs or BACs need to complete the Select a Test Date Task in PearsonAccessnext (PAN). This is a required task and should only take a few minutes to complete.
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Select test dates and shipping dates in PAN.
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Verify the shipping address in PAN.
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Submit an Address Change Request Form if the address needs to be updated. This form can be located in the PAN user guide.
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Send an email to Shara Savage if an address change is needed, as well.
OAA encourages schools/districts to make selections from the dropdown menus for both paper and online testing dates. With the COVID-19 virus still raging in our state, the selection of paper and online provides more testing flexibility during the spring 2021 administration of the ACT. Online testing offers six testing days in each administration window. The online administration option allows schools/districts more flexibility in bringing in small groups for testing, following local health department and Kentucky Department of Education guidance.
Important Note: The deadline to complete these tasks is Monday, Nov. 30. If a school/district does not select a test date, the school/district will be marked as not participating and will not receive future email communications or materials from ACT.
Please contact Shara Savage with any questions.
“As I begin my 28th year in education and my 6th year as the District Assessment Coordinator, I can say that I am truly blessed to work with an amazing team of dedicated individuals at Russell Independent located in north east Kentucky.
“I would like to take the opportunity to touch on some universal struggles and ways we can learn to cope with the times we are all living through. Educators are trying to navigate blended learning, virtual learning, consistent communication with families about student work being submitted, the urgency of learning loss, learning gaps due to COVID-19, student presence in the virtual world, feedback, the thought of assessment when we haven’t been able to fully teach standards to mastery, and on and on. While educators across our state and nation are trying to navigate the real struggles on education during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d like to share “Lessons from the Geese” found in a motivational book Pulling Together by John Murphy. This inspiring book also shares the wisdom of 10 rules for high performance teamwork.
“As geese flap their wings, they create an uplift for the bird following. By flying in a V formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if any bird were to fly alone.”
“As Kentucky educators we will find ways to navigate and get through this together as a team just as Governor Beshear so notably tagged #TeamKentucky.
“For the full story of the geese, click here. As a closing thought I would say to hang in there my DAC friends and family, continue to lift each other up and our children, our schools, our staff, and our communities will see brighter days ahead.”
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions presented in the article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE).
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