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Dear Colleagues,
I anticipate this week will be an exciting and busy one. I will be making my first visit to schools since I took over my role as interim commissioner of education.
On Thursday, I will be visiting schools in Warren County, and on Friday, I will be in Lexington. I have heard previous commissioners say how their favorite part of their job was the chance to go out into the schools across the state and meet with students and educators. I am looking forward to the visits this week.
I believe it is important for those of us who work in Frankfort to get out into schools whenever we have an opportunity to do so. While our work may tie us to Frankfort for parts of the year – particularly during a session – it is important for us see how things are being implemented in schools and classrooms so we can work together to improve the services we provide to our students on a daily basis. Please know that I will be visiting schools whenever I can, and listening at all times to the input you provide.
Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with the Commissioner’s Student Advisory Council for the first time as interim commissioner. The students learned about the Kentucky Board of Education’s legislative priorities and discussed how to deal with stress and anxiety with Michelle Sircy, program coordinator for comprehensive school counseling in KDE’s Office of Teaching and Learning,
I asked the students what they would do to be successful if they were serving as an interim principal at their school. The input they gave me will serve me well in my time as interim commissioner.
“If I was a principal for the whole school year, I would focus on what people felt about areas of excellence and where we could improve,” said Anopa Musoni, a senior at Lafayette High School (Fayette County).
Shraman Kar, a senior at duPont Manual High School (Jefferson County), said he would “create an inclusive and open relationship with teachers, staff, students and the main stakeholders.”
Ava Benson, a 12th-grader at Henderson County High School, said she “would also make sure to listen to underrepresented staff like cafeteria workers and janitors because they are the backbone of our schools.”
I thought these were great suggestions, and I plan to keep them in mind as we move forward in the search for Kentucky’s next commissioner of education.
Sincerely,
Robin Kinney
Interim Commissioner of Education
CHFS Issues Guidance on KRS 620.030, Duty to Report
Following questions from school districts regarding whether reports of suspected dependency, abuse or neglect must be made orally or in writing, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) recently released the following guidance:
“The Cabinet for Health and Family Services has been notified that there is a need to provide clarification regarding the methods for reporting suspected dependency, abuse or neglect due to the most recent version of KRS 620.030 passed by the General Assembly omitting the phrase ‘or written’ in KRS 620.030(2)(a)(1).
“The Cabinet for Health and Family Services has interpreted and continues to interpret the reporting provisions of KRS 620.030 to allow for ‘any person’ including, but not limited to, school personnel, who know or have reasonable cause to believe that a child is dependent, neglected or abused to make a report either orally or in writing to the Cabinet for investigation.”
This guidance from CHFS clarifies that mandatory reporting may be accomplished either orally or in writing. For additional information regarding the duty to report suspected child abuse or neglect, please see the Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect booklet published by CHFS.
School Report Card – Public Release Prep
Reminder: The Kentucky School Report Card (SRC) will go public at 10 p.m. ET on Oct 31. The district embargo period opens at 8 a.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 30, and closes at 9:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Oct. 31.
During this embargo period, districts and schools may discuss results internally or with media (during media embargo), but not in public meetings. This release provides an opportunity for districts to see school report cards before the public release and to access the research data sets for all districts and the state.
The release of data to the media, under embargo, will be at 1 p.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 30. KDE is coordinating the media's access to the data. This embargo period provides the media with time to review and prepare stories prior to public release. All data is embargoed until 10 p.m. ET, Oct. 31, however, it may be discussed with media during the media embargo period to prepare for a local press release.
During the embargo period, no data can be changed. Most data was previously reviewed in the SRC approval tool or Student Data Review and Roster application. However, this is the first opportunity to review Assessment (Academic Performance) and Accountability data in the School Report Card.
A secure URL/password will be shared with district assessment coordinators and School Report Card contacts. They are asked to share this access information with superintendents or other school and district leaders with an understanding that this is an embargo period. Districts should not share the URL/password with media. Please route any media requests to KDE Chief Communications Officer Toni Konz Tatman.
During this last week before embargo release, schools and districts should:
- Prepare for media and community questions. No changes to the SRC can be made during the embargo period. The embargo period will be the first opportunity to see Assessment (Academic Performance) and Accountability data in the SRC.
- Develop a local plan for sharing the SRC, including updating school and district websites. Previously posted URLs may need to be updated to reflect a direct link to 2023 data or use the generic link without year – https://kyschoolreportcard.com/. The SRC Sharing Requirements document details how schools and districts must distribute the SRC locally.
- Ensure that signed School Profile Reports are available for each school in the district board office. This was due by Oct. 1. Once the SRC is public, the unsigned School Profile Report is available from the school’s report card landing page (bottom right).
- Route any outstanding data issues to the KDE point of contact as designated in the Quality Assurance Worksheet. Our ability to update data prior to public release is limited.
- Access the Kentucky SRC Data Approval and Collection Tool to update data collection items if an issue is found before public release. This tool will close Oct. 27 at 5 p.m. ET. Until then, districts can continue to use the download function to review the data that has been entered, including the optional superintendent message. The preview dashboard feature also remains available to verify that principal and superintendent contacts reflect the current contacts and not prior year.
Please pass along thanks from KDE to all the district and school staff who helped with SRC review, approvals and data entry. Most districts completed data entry and approved their SRC domains, which is much appreciated and provides assurances that data has been reviewed prior to public release. The SRC data will become public in accordance with the schedule below, regardless of the approval status.
The SRC timeline, previous communications and SRC resources are available on KDE’s SRC Resource webpage.
Public release dates for the 2023 School Report Card, including assessment, accountability and federal classification data, are:
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Monday, Oct. 30: District embargo period opens 8 a.m. ET.
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Monday, Oct. 30: Media embargo opens 1 p.m. ET.
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Tuesday, Oct. 31: Embargo period closes 9:59 p.m. ET.
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Tuesday, Oct. 31: Public Release of SRC, 10 p.m. ET.
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Wednesday, Nov. 1: Data Approval and Collection tool reopens to accommodate updates to collection items. This tool will close Nov. 11.
CONTACTS:
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