ELP Assessment Update September 15, 2021
Many of you are well on your way with screening and training. This has been a challenging process for us all, and we appreciate you, your work, and patience. Below are the updates we have for this week to support the work you are doing and offer guidance where we can.
Unlocking WIDA Screener Scoring
All WIDA screener tests require some level of local scoring. We understand that this is new and there is a learning curve as we make this transition. We appreciate your thoughtful consideration of student scores and we trust that your training will provide you with the skills to accurately assess student performance. Please note, OSPI will not approve requests for re-opening student tests due to a TA’s desire to re-score a domain or concern that the initial scores were too low or too high.
If you have concerns that a student’s skills may not be represented in the test scores, please consider other local assessment options that can help you determine the best placement for students and contact the Bilingual Education Office for resources and support in how to best determine appropriate services.
If you have any questions about re-opening Screener Scoring for Writing or Speaking, please email the ELPAssessments@k12.wa.us account with an explanation of the situation you experienced and the SSID of the test to be reset or re-opened.
Students Experiencing Technical Difficulties
If you experience technical difficulties during testing, pause the test and contact OSPI or DRC. If your student has an interruption during the speaking test, pause the test without stopping the recording. Because the Screener is a single ticket log in, no one domain can be taken again in isolation.
If you have any questions about a student retaking a Screener please email the ELPAssessments@k12.wa.us account with an explanation of the situation you experienced and the SSID of the test to be reset or re-opened.
If you encounter any technical difficulties with WIDA AMS or DRC INSIGHT, please call DRC Customer Service at 855-787-9615 or wida@datarecognitioncorp.com
You may have noticed that the WIDA assessments do not allow for replay or re-recording. Because of this, it is especially important that interruptions are minimized. OSPI encourages you to work together with your school administration and staff to ensure you create the best opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge. Some strategies for minimizing interruptions during testing include:
- Keep a sign on the door that read “Testing. Do Not Disturb”
- Ensure that mobile phones are turned off
- Take the classroom phone off the hook
- Tape a sign over the school intercom that says “Testing in Progress. No Announcements from 10-noon”
- Ask office personnel to send a runner instead of paging people to come to the office
- Ask your administrator to notify TAs in advance of any safety drills
The WIDA Screener requires that something be recorded for each speaking item. When you are scoring Speaking, the first audio file should activate and show the length of the recording in seconds. The other audio files will be disabled with a length of 0:00 seconds until the first audio file is scored. If all files show a length of 0:00, this is a sign of an unreliable internet connection and the responses did not fully buffer into your individual scoring session. Exit out of the scoring tab without saving and wait for several minutes and then try again when the responses show available to score. If students’ recordings are longer, the system will sometimes have difficulty buffering the responses and give you 000 instead of the actual recording. Giving the system a little more time should fix this problem.
You should not be able to submit scores before you have scored each item as the “submit” button is greyed out until everything has a score on that page. Each page will be all the responses of a single, unique student for that domain. When you have given a score for each item, the “submit” button will activate. Once you click “submit, the scores will submit and no longer be accessible.
Also, if more than one person in your school has scoring permissions, then more than one person can access the submissions that need to be scored. Therefore, if you have a session that has 40 available responses to score, and 5 users click on “Score Session” within the same time frame, those responses will be divided across the five users. Users cannot score the same student at the same time, but the number of available responses to score may change frequently based on how many users are scoring at the same time and may catch users off guard. Once there are no more responses to score, a message will appear to indicate that there are no more responses.
It may be best, as we all learn this new system, to choose “Score Students” instead of “Score Session” when entering the system. Score Students will allow you to see who you are scoring and allow schools to better structure who scores what. Score Session is a random and anonymous way to score. “Score Student” must be used to score all writing domain responses in grades 1-3.
OSPI is continuing our Open Zoom opportunities to get your questions answered and offer an opportunity to connect with other district leaders to work through any difficulties that you may be experiencing. These are informal opportunities to talk with OSPI and other districts around the new WIDA assessments. The sessions are scheduled for an hour but will not always last the full hour.
Monday, September 20 at noon: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84516693006
Monday, September 27 at noon: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85431855758
Monday, October 4 at noon: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87385235945
The new Secure Portal requires that the ACCESS training for the spring annual assessment be active for the state in order for educators to access the WIDA Webinars. OSPI has activated the Online ACCESS training, but educators should not begin training prior to November 29, 2021.
This has been a very difficult transition buried in a world of change and disruption in so many areas of education. Many of you have taken the time to help us understand the ways different decisions and policies are impacting districts across a variety of areas and how we can better support you at this time. We appreciate the opportunities you are providing to help us learn and understand your situations. Because of your efforts, we are better able to collaborate and support educators and districts across the state. As always, thank you for your patience and grace as we move forward.
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