ELP Assessment Update - September 19, 2019
Welcome to the new school year. We are off and running with over 16 thousand screeners administered since August. Thank you all for your continued work in serving our English learners.
Deadlines for identifying students for accommodated test forms are quickly approaching. Please make sure settings are set in TIDE for ELPA21 testers by October 28. For students who test on the WIDA Alternate ACCESS, make sure they are identified in WAMS by Friday, December 6.
OSPI has contracted with ELPA21 to offer 2 workshops designed to help general education teachers better understand and apply the ELPA21 scores in their instruction. Each workshop will be offered in three locations around the state. Paperwork is still begin processed, but please begin the process at your district to identify people who would benefit from participation.
Workshop 1: ELPA21 Standards, Assessments, and Scores Workshop
Description: This is an introduction to the framework of standards and assessments that provide a foundation for educators seeking to better serve English learners in their classes. This full day workshop will guide educators through an overview of the ELPA21 standards, the meaning of ELPA21 assessment scores, and high-level take-aways for guiding instruction for English learners based on standards and scores.
Target Audience: General Education Teachers
Dates and Locations:
- October 18: ESD 105 (Yakima)
- October 21: Evergreen State College (Olympia)
- October 22: Edmonds School District (Edmonds)
Registration: Registration is opening soon in pdEnroller. Registration is required and will be capped at 50 participants in each session. We are anticipating full enrollment in all sessions, so please plan ahead.
Cost: OSPI is covering the cost of the training. Districts will cover the cost of travel and subs.
Workshop 2: Differentiating Instruction for ELs Based on English Language Proficiency Level
Description: This full day workshop will address the question “How do I take the information I have about a student’s language proficiency and plan instruction for the varied levels in my classroom?” and provide a framework for planning, delivering, and assessing classroom instruction based on the student’s English language proficiency levels. This approach to differentiating instruction by ELP level will assist educators in meeting the diverse needs of students across a variety of proficiency levels.
Target Audience: General Education Teachers
Dates and Locations:
- December 2: TBD
- December 3: TBD
- December 4: TBD
Registration: Registration is opening soon in pdEnroller. Registration is required and will be capped at 50 participants in each session. We are anticipating full enrollment in all sessions, so please plan ahead.
Cost: OSPI is covering the cost of the training. Districts will cover the cost of travel and subs.
OSPI is wrapping up our on-site monitoring of screener test sessions. Overall 19 districts in eight ESDs were visited since August 19. Follow up letters can be expected in those districts by the end of the month.
During the summative ELP assessment window in February and March, additional monitoring will be conducted across the state. In preparation for monitoring, OSPI will identify districts for monitoring and send notification of a preferred monitoring date by the beginning of November. Please consult your school calendars and confirm whether monitoring on the specified day is appropriate for your district. Due to the possibility of weather-impacted travel, we are scheduling far ahead to try include contingency planning. Thank you for your prompt attention when you receive the calendar.
OSPI's Assessment Data team is working with AIR to allow TIDE to accept special characters (not included in the 26 character English alphabet) that can be processed into CEDARS, and they’re seeking feedback on whether and how to implement this update. What this would mean for students is that if their name contains one of these characters (e.g., Ø, ñ, ç) in the student’s CEDARS record, it would be reflected in TIDE, the Test Delivery System, ORS, AIRWays, and on hard-copy family reports (ISRs).
The impact would be twofold: 1) students would see an accurate spelling of their name in the systems they use to access Smarter Balanced, WCAS, and ELPA21, and 2) since students must use their first name as one of their login credentials for these tests, students would be required to enter their name as it appears in TIDE to access assessments. This would only affect students in districts that send “non-normalized” versions of students’ names to CEDARS. The main concern is whether students are familiar with how to input these characters using the keyboard they will be using during their assessments as a lack of familiarity with inputting these characters could become a barrier to logging into assessments.
Please direct any feedback, questions, or concerns to assessmentanalysts@k12.wa.us There is no specific timeline to implement this change with our assessment vendor, but it would be possible to implement as early as this autumn.
|
