The California Department of Education has partnered with the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) to hold the annual California Assessment Conference on October 6 and 7, 2020, through a virtual conference platform. Details about this professional learning opportunity and registration are available on the conference website at https://www.cdecac.org.

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. New Resource! Guidance on Diagnostic and Formative Assessments Today, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond announced the availability of a new resource, "Guidance on Diagnostic and Formative Assessments." This informative document describes how educators can use California's approved assessments to evaluate where students are academically at the start of and throughout the school year. CALPADS and the ELPAC: Changes Beginning July 1, 2020, the California Longi...

Editor's note:  Still not sure if they understand schools or not.  Keeping students 6 feet apart from each other is clearly not a viable option in schools where 40 students are crammed into a single classroom.  Unclear what resources, if any, will actually flow to schools to enable these recommendations to lead to actual implementation.  But here they are . . . . California Releases Guidance on Re-Opening of Schools Stronger Together -  Published June 8, 2020. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/documents/strongertogether.pdf

Assessment Spotlight Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Newly Updated Smarter Content Explorer! The Smarter Content Explorer has recently been updated! Offering new features based on educator feedback, this user-friendly web tool combines the information provided in the Smarter Balanced Content and Item Specifications—key resources used in test and item development—into an easy-to-use search interface. Users can access customized content generated by a quick search by subject, grade, and targ...

Take our poll and let us know! https://www.schooldataleadership.org/dashboard/stream/item/6754  

It's interesting how so many news reporters, bloggers, and just average citizens can interpret the same data so wildly differently.  This short and extremely informative video explains why this is true when looking at the COVID-19 Country Data.  Interesting to project this same thinking onto K-12 school data.  Even when we collect it accurately, are we also interpreting it accurately? 

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments for Distance Learning With the widespread closure of schools in California and the suspension of CAASPP testing due to COVID-19, many local educational agencies (LEAs) are serving their students through distance learning. To aid teachers and other LEA staff during this challenging time, the California Department of Education (CDE) will make available, as an optional resource, the Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments for u...

The deadline has not been extended due to the COVID-19 crisis.  You still need to observe Wednesday's deadline to identify next year's ELPAC Coordinators. 

Supporting Schools and Districts Impacted by COVID-19 - Illuminate Education Additional resources from Illuminate. https://www.illuminateed.com/covid-19-resources/

Editor's note:  This message was shared with me today and I'm posting it on behalf of Aeries.  This is a great opportunity to hone your Aeries skills and knowledge during the shut-down!  Hello everyone, To help our users keep their Aeries skills sharp during the current school closures, we are offering all Aeries Academy courses completely free of cost for all enrollments between now and June 30th. It is our hope that making these self-paced online learning courses available for free will help users brush up on their knowledge of Aeries SIS and discover new functionality they can put to good use when they return to their normal daily working lives. Aeries Teacher Academy cours...

Flexbooks are online and free.  Check out this video to learn how to use.

​Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. WebEx for All CAASPP and ELPAC Coordinators—Are You Registered? Calling all local educational agency (LEA) CAASPP or ELPAC coordinators: You asked for more frequent updates from California Department of Education (CDE) staff about assessment-related activities; in response, we are pleased to announce the first CDE-hosted All Coordinators WebEx! This will take place on March 18 at 2 p.m. and will cover updates provided by the CDE as well as a question and an...

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Summative ELPAC Administration Under Way! Local educational agencies (LEAs) should be administering the computer-based Summative ELPAC, which contains audio files for the Listening and Speaking domains. These audio files are played through the test delivery system and are accessed by students on the testing device. LEA ELPAC coordinators are asked to direct site coordinators and test examiners to use the instructions included in the Directions for Administra...

 

Charter School Management Corporation, Total Education Solutions, and Megan Moore Law are teaming up to put together a free educational workshop geared towards charter school executive directors and special education directors and coordinators. This interactive session will engage participants in understanding efforts to increase compliance. WHEN: Tuesday, April 28, 20209:00 AM - 1:30 PM (including 30 min lunch break) WHERE: CSMC Glendale Training Center201 N. Brand Blvd., B100Glendale, CA 91203 WHO SHOULD ATTEND: CEO'sExecutive DirectorsPrincipalsSpecial Education DirectorsSpecial Education TeachersHealth Staff HOW TO SIGN UP:​ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/serving-students-with-disabilities...

Disabling of the Student Discipline File on February 25, 2020 In preparation for implementing the new student incident files for the 2019–20 End-of-Year (EOY) 3 submission, the current Student Discipline (SDIS) file and User Interface will be disabled on February 25, 2020. Therefore, beginning February 25, 2020, LEAs will not be able to: Update historical SDIS information through batch or online.View Student Detail Discipline and historical Incident Discipline data in the CALPADS User Interface.Access Operational Data Store (ODS) versions of the discipline reports (reports 7.xx). Therefore, any updates to student discipline data in prior years in the CALPADS Operational Data Store must be ma...

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. California Science Test and California Spanish Assessment: 2018–19 Summary Results The 2018–19 summary results for the first operational administration of the California Science Test (CAST) and the California Spanish Assessment (CSA) were made available to the public on February 4, 2020. The summary results are reported at the state, county, district, and school levels by grade and student groups. The CAST and CSA summary results are located on the Californi...

Understanding Participation and Scoring Rules for the Online 2019–2020 Summative ELPAC Dear LEA ELPAC Coordinator: Local educational agencies (LEAs) may be wondering how the transition to the computer-based ELPAC affects how English learners (ELs) count as participated and which students will be scored. English Language Acquisition Status (ELAS) has a whole new importance with a computer-based assessment. ELs will be eligible to test only if their ELAS is "EL." Please work with the LEA's California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System coordinator to ensure all ELAS data is up to date before students begin testing. To count as participated, students must log on to at least one domain in...

English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) Monthly Communication Upcoming Dates and Deadlines for February 2020 January 15–May 15, 2020 Summative Supplemental Test Materials Ordering Window The supplemental test materials ordering window is open from January 15 through May 15, 2020. Materials will arrive 10–14 business days after the order is placed. Materials ordered through the supplemental window will be for grades at the local educational agency (LEA) level, not for individual sites. For instructions on how to place a kindergarten–grade two (K–2) Writing test materials order, view the page instructions on the [Place Primary Order] tab under the [Orders] navigation ta...