03-20-2020 | WDE Assessment Updates | Volume 7, Issue 29
The U.S. Department of Education (USED) announced today States would be afforded flexibility and allowed to file for an expedited, targeted one-year waiver from assessments and accountability, including the related State Report Card requirements. Today, the WDE filed this waiver with USED who has informally approved Superintendent Balow’s request for a waiver from certain assessment, accountability, and report card provisions. The WDE will suspend WY-ALT testing and cancel WY-TOPP summative testing for the school year 2019-20, and no formal accountability determinations will be made for the 2019-20 school year. The WDE is taking public comment on this waiver through April 20, 2020.
We are requesting these waivers because it is not possible to administer assessments required under ESEA section 1111(b)(2) or the ability to comply with the concomitant accountability, school identification, and reporting requirements as originally planned due to extensive school closures in the State. These closures are in response to extraordinary circumstances for which a national emergency has been duly declared by the President of the United States under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and this action will protect the health and safety of students, staff, and our communities.
Contact Jessica Steinbrenner, 307-777-8568, jessica.steinbrenner@wyo.gov with any questions on assessments and Sean McInerney, 307-777-8752, sean.mcinerney@wyo.gov with any questions on accountability.
March testing has been canceled. At this time,WDE recommends changing ACT assessment dates using the third option, April 21. We also recommend administering the online version. WDE is currently working with ACT to investigate the following:
- A voucher process to give students, schools, and districts an opportunity to leverage national testing dates should they not be able to use the state testing dates. The tests given on national testing dates will provide college-reportable scores for students..
- A new opportunity in May for state testing. ACT is looking into this option now but stated if it could be done it would have to be online testing.
- The possibility of testing in the fall.
Please watch the newsletter for further information. Contact Jessica Steinbrenner, 307-777-8568, jessica.steinbrenner@wyo.gov with any questions.
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The pre-reporting data validation window for ACCESS for ELLs and Alternate ACCESS for ELLs for Wyoming starts on Friday, March 20. Data validation is an important process that identifies student demographic information and accommodations, allows a data review to discover errors in test results, and allows corrections to be made before reporting occurs.
Test Coordinators can go to the WIDA AMS User Guide Supplement: Data Validation located in the Download Library in the WIDA Secure Portal. You can also view the training webinars and Q&A sessions schedule posted in the WIDA Secure Portal.
After the close of your data validation window, districts and schools will not have another opportunity to edit student data prior to reports being printed/posted to WIDA AMS.
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March 3-April 22: WY-ALT Assessments - SUSPENDED as of 03/20/2020
- March 20-April 2: ACCESS Data Validation
- March 24: ACT Paper Test (option 1) - CANCELED 03/20/2020
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March 24-26, and 31, April 1-2: ACT Online Test (option 1) - CANCELED on 03/20/2020
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April 7: ACT Paper Test (option 2)
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April 7-9, 14-16: ACT Online Test (option 2)
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April 7: WIDA “Lesson Planning” Workshop in Laramie (registration coming soon)
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April 8: WIDA “Writing with Multilingual Learners in the Elementary Grades” Workshop in Laramie (registration coming soon)
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April 14-May 8: WY-TOPP Summative Assessments and Spring Interims - Summative CANCELED on 03/20/2020
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April 20-24: WorkKeys
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April 21: ACT Paper Test (option 3)
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April 21-23, 28-30: ACT Online Test (option 3)
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