ELP Assessment Update January 3, 2024
Welcome to 2024! As always, we are kicking the year off with English language proficiency testing beginning at the end of January. Below are some quick updates to help you prepare for testing and have a smooth testing season. We appreciate the work you do and are looking forward to working with you.
January 4 or 5 is when Student Management will open in WIDA-AMS. At that time, you can arrange students in test sessions, add/edit students, etc.
January 19-22 is when districts will receive their initial materials for WIDA testing. These materials will be based on the data file pulled from CEDARS on December 8.
January 19 is when the Additional Materials Order window opens. It is important that you receive your initial materials shipment before ordering additional materials as you will often receive overage on common materials. Also, please refrain from making daily or weekly additional materials orders. OSPI must approve these orders and having multiple orders from each district will delay how fast we can approve orders.
January 29 is opening day of the testing window. The window will close on March 22.
February 24 is the first day districts have the authority to decide if students enrolling in Washington schools will take both the screener and the annual test before the end of the test window or if they will only do the screener. Students arriving on or before February 23 must take both if they are determined eligible for program.
March 29 is the deadline to ship completed test materials to DRC.
Test administrators are required to complete annual training for the test they administer. In general, test administrators need to complete trainings in the WIDA Secure Portal. In the Secure Portal, trainings are organized by the test and test version individuals will administer. If a TA is only administering WIDA Kindergarten ACCESS, then they would only need to complete that training. However, if they are also administering WIDA Alternate ACCESS, then that would be an additional training that they will need to complete.
For the WIDA Online ACCESS there is a state-developed refresher training. The refresher training is available to TAs who will be administering the Online ACCES and have completed either (or both) the WIDA Secure Portal training for Online ACCESS for the 2023 test administration or the WIDA Screener. If someone completed the Refresher training for 2023 and did not complete screener training after July 1, 2024, then they will need to complete the WIDA Secure Portal training for the annual test this year. As a reminder, districts can choose to allow the refresher training for their test administrators. The refresher training is not required.
Join us on Mondays at noon for Lunch with Leslie Zoom meetings to discuss WIDA assessments, updates, and testing processes. This is an informal opportunity for district staff involved in ELP assessments to collaborate and share information.
Zoom link for January 2024-July 2024: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83455690961
In January, we will have some Tuesday sessions to accommodation Monday holidays. Please mark your calendars. January sessions will be held on the 2nd, 8th, 16th, 22nd, and 29th.
OSPI submitted the CEDARS file to DRC in December and from that file, students will be loaded into WIDA AMS and initial materials orders will be generated for each school. All materials will be sent to the district along with school allotment information.
Once you receive your materials, you may find that you need some additional materials. Only district assessment coordinators can make additional materials orders in WIDA AMS. When ordering additional materials, DACs must select “District Level Additional Materials” as the school in the dropdown menu. Choosing any other school in the dropdown menu will result in a canceled order. OSPI can only approve orders for District Level Additional Materials.
OSPI must approve each additional material order. To help streamline this process, please ensure that you have a plan to collect requests for materials only two or three times throughout the testing window. This will ensure that OSPI staff can review the orders in a more timely manner for approval.
Any situation that includes a request to invalidate, regenerate or move a test to a different SSID must be requested through ARMS. These situations should be rare, but when they occur, they will need to go through ARMS. Assessment staff will plan to review ARMS requests daily; however, if volume is high there may be a delay in resolving issues.
WIDA Secure Portal offers a number of webinars to support testing activities through the year. The following webinars may be most helpful at this time of year as you prepare for testing to begin.
WIDA Alternate ACCESS for New Test Administrators: This year the WIDA Alternate ACCESS is new and this webinar offers some insight into the changes that have been made for both new and returning test administrators.
During Testing: Managing Students in WIDA AMS – ACCESS Online (This is not the required TA training)
As we gear up for testing, I just want to remind everyone that OSPI is here to help things run smoothly. Please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask your questions or clarify understanding. We are here to support you and are eager to hear from you. Some useful contacts are below.
wida@datarecognitioncorp.com – DRC’s help desk can support any questions about WIDA-AMS and how it works.
help@wida.us – WIDA’s help desk can support questions about WIDA Secure Portal access.
ELPAssessments@k12.wa.us – OSPI can support questions about state policy and provide support when DACs have questions.
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