WDE Information Management News-- May 22, 2018

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05-22-2018  |  General News

WDE752 TEACHER AND LEADER EVALUATION DATA COLLECTION

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To satisfy requirements in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) is taking steps to ensure that minority and low-income students are not disproportionately served by ineffective teachers. From November 2017 until April 2018, a stakeholder group consisting of representatives from 16 Wyoming school districts, the Professional Teaching Standards Board (PTSB), the University of Wyoming (UW), the Wyoming Education Association (WEA), and WDE staff convened in a series of work sessions with the intent of defining an ineffective educator in Wyoming. The definition crafted by the group can be found here.

WDE will deploy an Educator Equity Data Collection on May 21, 2018 with a closing date of June 29, 2018, to be completed based on the ineffective educator definition and within the context of each school district’s teacher evaluation system. This data collection named WDE752, will be pre-populated with the names of teachers as reported on the fall 2017 WDE602. A form can be downloaded through the Data Collection Suite (DCS), edited and then uploaded back into DCS. Teachers hired after the WDE602 collection date or who were mistakenly not reported on the WDE602 will need to be manually entered. WDE will further use WDE652 data to ensure all teachers were evaluated and reported.

The collection guidebook is posted online and contains full descriptions of the elements. It will consist of staff demographic fields and an evaluation outcome field where districts will select one of the following:

 

E - Effective

F - Teacher incorrectly reported on the WDE602 and did not teach in the 2017-18 school year

L - Teacher has less than 3 years experience total

N - Not effective

P - Teacher was evaluated but has not been at the district long enough to meet the definition of a pattern

X - Teacher met criteria to be evaluated but was not evaluated

 

If a teacher was not evaluated and the district reported "X", a brief narrative explaining why is required.

The steward for this data collection is Donal Mattimoe and he can be reached at donal.mattimoe@wyo.gov. Training for the collection will be held at 2 p.m. on May 22. Connect at https://zoom.us/j/571629376 and use Meeting ID: 571 629 376.

HATHAWAY COURSE VERIFICATION TIMELINE AND WDE638

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The HathawayIndicator field on the WDE638 is now being used to indicate that a course is being submitted for Hathaway Approval.  Approved Hathaway courses are handled within the Hathaway approval application. Please keep in mind that when Hathaway courses are added to the this year's WDE638, districts will need to populate the HathawayIndicator field with a "Y." This indicates that the course is being submitted for approval by the Hathaway team. Contact Brian at  brian.wuerth@wyo.gov for guidance on the WDE638 collection. 

WISER ID SYSTEM UPDATES

The Information Management Division continues to work on upgrades to the WISER ID system for students and staff. Staff will be assigned an eight-digit WISER ID and the existing seven-digit staff IDs will be retired. All 2017-18 data collections which contain staffing information will use the seven-digit staff IDs. When the 2018-19 data collections begin, staff will reported using the eight-digit WISER IDs. The IM Division will work with districts to provide eight-digit WISER IDs for their staff, including matching and case conflicts.  

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CYBERSECURITY TIP

Never share a password, even with the help desk.

Microsoft is not going to call you to offer support and you should never call a phone number on a blue screen error message. Scammers are very clever and they will try to imitate legitimate support technicians with phony calls pretending to be from the help desk. What should you do if you get a call asking for your password? Do not give away your password. Hang up. The same applies to emails asking for your username and password. Don't reply to the message, just delete it.

Any genuine help desk technician will either ask you to type your password while they look away, or they will use the all-powerful system tools they have at their workstations. 

Do you have a visitor? Get them a guest account through your IT professionals, don't share your info.  

Many functions, such as delegating calendar scheduling, can be assigned to another person without sharing passwords. Your password is your identity, don't give it away.

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