Ellevation Quick Start Guide

Connect trustworthy English learner data to coordinated program decisions, classroom support, required documentation, and sustained monitoring.

Ellevation is an educator-facing English language development and program-management environment. It can bring student information, workflows, reports, instructional strategies, professional learning, and selected assessment insights into one workspace. The district still governs the official records, locally approved criteria, staff responsibilities, and final decisions.

Official Ellevation overview

Use One Workspace Across the English Learner Program

Govern

Name the authoritative source, data owner, user role, update schedule, and correction route for every critical field.

Understand

Give educators current student profiles, language-domain information, program history, goals, and assigned work.

Act

Use evidence to plan instruction, complete workflows, consult families, provide support, and monitor progress.

Document

Record who reviewed the evidence, what was decided, where the official update occurred, and what happens next.

SIS, ELPAC, CALPADS, and teacher input flow securely into an Ellevation work hub that produces dashboards, forms, goals, reports, and family letters; an approved-update path returns to official systems. — Ellevation organizes data and work. The district must still define which system owns each field, how updates enter Ellevation, who approves decisions, and where official changes are recorded. Conceptual illustration, not an Ellevation interface. Select to view full size.

A dashboard is a decision-support view. It may reveal a student who needs attention or appears ready for a workflow. Verify the underlying records and complete the district’s approved process before changing services or official status.

Identify the Licensed Ellevation Components

Access and purpose vary by district agreement
Component	Primary purpose	Typical interaction
Ellevation Platform	Student profiles, data views, goals, program workflows, monitoring, reports, and collaboration	District leaders, administrators, specialists, counselors, and teachers review and act on authorized information.
Forms	Configurable collection and approval workflows for plans, teacher input, reclassification, monitoring, and local documentation	Assigned educators complete tasks; coordinators monitor status, review evidence, and follow up.
Ellevation Strategies	Professional-learning modules and more than 100 research-based classroom activities	Teachers learn, select, adapt, and facilitate strategies within grade-level content instruction.
Family Communication	Digital family letters, translated communication, responses, signatures, and status tracking	Availability and local approval vary; districts verify recipients, language, content, delivery, response, and retained record.
Ellevation Benchmark	Short language-proficiency checkpoints across reading, writing, listening, and speaking	This is student-facing when purchased and activated; confirm current availability, roster, login, administration, and reporting.
Ellevation Math	Academic-language support connected to mathematics	Where still licensed, teachers use primers, language routines, and confidence questions with students.

District Data and Setup

Build a reliable data and permissions environment before assigning forms or asking educators to use dashboards.

Inventory the implementation

Document the licensed modules, schools, grades, student populations, administrator structure, user roles, contract dates, support contacts, professional learning, data feeds, assessment sources, forms, reports, family communications, and any student-facing products. Confirm which features are active rather than assuming every item on the public product site is included.

Map every authoritative source

Define where a correction begins and where an approved action ends
Information	Likely authoritative source	Ellevation role
Student identity, enrollment, school, grade, courses, and teachers	District SIS and scheduling system	Organize imported records into authorized student profiles, lists, assignments, and views.
Initial and Summative ELPAC results	TOMS, CALPADS, and validated district records	Display language proficiency and domain information for analysis and workflow use.
English Language Acquisition Status and status date	District SIS and CALPADS reporting process	Support review and documentation; the district records the approved official change.
Local assessments, grades, attendance, services, and program participation	District-designated systems	Combine selected evidence for monitoring, planning, and reporting.
Teacher evaluation, goals, notes, and monitoring evidence	Locally approved process and completed educator records	Distribute, collect, track, organize, and retain authorized workflow evidence.

Resolve conflicts at the source. Editing a downstream display does not reliably repair the SIS, TOMS, CALPADS, assessment, or scheduling record that may overwrite it during the next import.

Design and validate the data exchange

Use stable student, staff, school, course, and section identifiers.
Document each file or connection, included population, field transformation, schedule, owner, and failure alert.
Reconcile counts by school, grade, ELAS, program, assessment year, and teacher assignment.
Test new, transferring, withdrawn, duplicate, missing-ID, dually identified, and recently reclassified students.
Define how late ELPAC results, corrected records, summer changes, and historical data are reprocessed.
Keep a dated pre-import and post-import validation record for consequential updates.

Configure sign-in and permissions

Ellevation publicly documents single sign-on through Clever and ClassLink and uses role-based permissions. Authentication establishes identity; imported relationships and permission rules determine which students, sites, dashboards, forms, and reports that user may access.

Publish one official login route and prevent duplicate local accounts.
Test district EL leaders, site administrators, EL specialists, general education teachers, counselors, coaches, substitutes, and support staff.
Confirm whether teachers see current students, assigned forms, historical students, and only the data needed for their role.
Remove departed staff promptly and review elevated access on a schedule.
Use approved demonstration records when training staff; avoid exposing real student data unnecessarily.

Official Ellevation security and privacy overview

Configure workflows around local policy

Define form cycles, recipients, due dates, reminders, required evidence, signatures, reviews, approvals, reopen rules, exports, and retention. Align dashboards and candidate lists with current district criteria. Assign an owner who updates configurations when state guidance, local board policy, assessments, thresholds, or staff responsibilities change.

Before launch, complete each workflow as a teacher, reviewer, administrator, and demonstration student where applicable. Verify that an incomplete form cannot appear complete, a prior-year response is not mistaken for current evidence, and an approval reaches the staff member responsible for the official update.

Prepare annual rollover and support

Preserve required records, close or archive completed cycles as directed, refresh schools and roles, remove obsolete access, load new enrollment and schedules, reconcile continuing EL and RFEP populations, and test new-year dashboards before distributing work. Publish a support route that distinguishes login, missing-student, incorrect-data, workflow, policy, and instructional questions.

Teacher Access and Instruction

Use student information to plan appropriate language support within rigorous grade-level instruction.

Enter through the approved route

Use the district’s Ellevation link, Clever portal, or ClassLink launch. Confirm the correct school, current classes or student groups, assigned tasks, and role. Report a missing student or class through the district data-support route rather than creating another identity or maintaining a private duplicate list.

Read the profile as a whole

Review language background, ELAS and program history, ELPAC overall and domain results, goals, services, prior supports, classroom evidence, grades, attendance, and locally selected measures as authorized. Check dates and source labels so an old score or incomplete import is not treated as a current need.

Describe strengths before needs. Language proficiency is one part of the student’s learning profile. It is not a measure of intelligence, motivation, home-language value, content knowledge, or potential.

Translate information into a language objective

Begin with the grade-level content objective. Identify the listening, speaking, reading, or writing students will need to demonstrate understanding. Then choose a clear language objective and the support that gives students meaningful access without reducing the intellectual demand.

Move from evidence to a teachable classroom action
Plan	Teacher question	Possible action
Content objective	What grade-level idea or practice will students learn?	Keep the intended content, text, problem, investigation, or source visible.
Language demand	How must students receive and express meaning?	Name the required language function, form, vocabulary, and interaction.
Evidence-informed support	Which current strength can help the student meet that demand?	Use visuals, modeling, structured conversation, sentence support, background building, or strategic grouping.
Evidence of learning	What will show both content understanding and developing language?	Collect talk, writing, annotations, models, explanations, or a short performance.

Use Strategies as teacher-led practice

Ellevation Strategies combines professional-learning modules with research-based classroom activities. Learn the activity, select a version appropriate to the proficiency range and lesson, prepare its materials, model the routine, facilitate student interaction, and reflect on the evidence. Students participate in the classroom activity; Strategies is not simply an independent digital curriculum assigned to each student.

Choose one strategy that fits an immediate lesson rather than browsing without a purpose.
Adapt names, examples, texts, visuals, and grouping to the local class.
Plan wait time and repeated opportunities to rehearse, clarify, strengthen, and share ideas.
Use the strategy with all students when it improves access and academic discourse.
Return to the dashboard or profile only when new evidence will change instruction.

Official Ellevation instruction overview

Complete assigned forms with evidence

Open the student and reporting period named in the task. Use current observations, work samples, assessments, grades, participation, and intervention evidence defined by the district. Distinguish direct observation from inference, describe the support provided and student response, save carefully, and confirm the final submit action.

Check student, school year, cycle, course, and due date before entering information.
Use specific evidence rather than general impressions.
Document concerns early enough for the support team to respond.
Do not duplicate confidential records in personal spreadsheets or email.
Confirm whether submission locks the form or whether a reviewer can return it.

Collaborate and follow through

Bring relevant Ellevation evidence to grade-level, department, ELD, MTSS, counseling, or student-support meetings. Agree on the responsible person, classroom action, progress measure, review date, and documentation location. A completed form closes an administrative task; instructional support continues until evidence shows that the need has been addressed.

California Reclassification and RFEP Monitoring

Use Ellevation to coordinate evidence and work while preserving the LEA’s decision authority and official reporting responsibilities.

A California pathway moves from identification, services, goals, and progress through four criteria—ELPAC, teacher evidence, parent consultation, and basic skills—to an RFEP update and monitoring in Years 1 through 4, with Year 3 highlighted. — Every required criterion belongs before the locally approved reclassification decision. The LEA then reports the RFEP status and monitors academic progress for at least four years. Conceptual illustration, not an Ellevation or CDE interface. Select to view full size.

Use all four reclassification criteria

California LEAs must use four criteria in their locally approved process: an objective assessment of English language proficiency; teacher evaluation based on evidence, including curriculum mastery; parent opinion and consultation; and comparison of basic-skills performance with an empirically established range for English-proficient students of the same age.

For the statewide English-proficiency criterion, current CDE guidance identifies Summative ELPAC Overall Performance Level 4 or Summative Alternate ELPAC Overall Performance Level 3. The LEA locally defines and consistently applies the teacher-evaluation, consultation, and basic-skills portions within state requirements.

Official CDE reclassification guidance

Treat candidate lists as a starting point

Configure Ellevation criteria and candidate views to match current local policy. Then validate the source, date, completeness, and threshold of every required measure. Include all teachers and certificated staff with direct responsibility for instruction or placement when gathering teacher evaluation evidence, as appropriate to the district process.

Teacher evaluation is evidence, not a popularity vote. CDE states that teacher evaluation should be based on data and the LEA’s established process rather than interpreted as a general teacher opinion.

Complete parent opinion and consultation

Use the district’s approved language-accessible process to explain the evidence, invite questions, seek parent or guardian opinion, and document the consultation before the decision. California requires opinion and consultation; parental consent is not required for reclassification. Confirm that any Ellevation letter or digital communication uses the correct recipient, home language, approved content, delivery route, response status, and retained record.

Record the approved decision in official systems

After the LEA confirms that all four criteria are met, follow local approval and record-retention procedures. Update the student’s official ELAS and RFEP start date through the district’s SIS and CALPADS process, then confirm the new status returns to Ellevation. Reconcile the Ellevation form, SIS record, CALPADS result, student services, family notification, and cumulative documentation.

Official CALPADS information

Monitor RFEP students for at least four years

California requires LEAs to monitor students for at least four years after they exit EL status. The monitoring system should show whether students participate meaningfully in the standard instructional program, whether premature exit is a concern, and whether academic deficits associated with learning English have been remedied. When evidence shows insufficient progress, provide appropriate intervention and support and continue until the need is resolved.

Official CDE RFEP monitoring guidance

Year 3 example: review, support, and document

A Latina teacher reviews a private monitoring folder while a Latina fifth-grade student confidently explains a grade-level plant-science diagram; the Year 3 path reads Review Evidence, Notice Strengths, Support If Needed, and Document. — Third-year RFEP monitoring belongs within ordinary attention to grade-level learning. Review multiple measures, recognize strengths, respond when evidence shows a need, and document the result without stigmatizing or lowering expectations for the student. Conceptual illustration, not an Ellevation interface. Select to view full size.

A meaningful Year 3 review
Review	Look for	Respond
Current academic evidence	Grade-level reading, writing, mathematics, course grades, local and state measures, and progress across time	Confirm expected progress or identify a specific academic area requiring support.
Classroom participation	Comprehension, discussion, explanation, independent work, attendance, and access to instruction	Continue effective universal supports or add a focused response tied to evidence.
Comparison and context	Performance relative to appropriate peers, opportunity to learn, mobility, disability, and other relevant factors	Avoid attributing every difficulty to prior EL status; involve the appropriate support team.
Follow-through	Responsible person, intervention, progress measure, family communication, and review date	Document completion and continue support until the identified deficit is remedied.

Resolve the Failed Layer

Start with the symptom and its likely owner
What you notice	Check first
The teacher can sign in but sees no students	Current teacher-course relationships, included population, data refresh, school assignment, and role permissions.
A student appears twice	Stable identifiers, duplicate SIS records, merge history, prior district identity, and import matching rule.
An ELPAC score is missing or old	Assessment year, TOMS/CALPADS availability, district acquisition, load date, rejected record, and student match.
A form went to the wrong teacher	Course tags, assigned staff, reporting-period logic, teacher-of-record data, workflow rule, and refresh timing.
A candidate list differs from the district list	Local criteria version, thresholds, source measures, dates, exclusions, missing values, and refresh schedule.
A completed workflow did not change ELAS	Approval status, responsible SIS/CALPADS staff member, official update procedure, validation result, and return feed.
A family letter has no response	Recipient, address or email, home language, delivery status, alternate contact method, follow-up owner, and documentation.
An RFEP student needs support	Specific evidence, comparison group, prior supports, intervention route, responsible team, progress measure, and review date.

Good Ellevation Habits

Name the source

Show where every field originated, when it was refreshed, who owns it, and how it is corrected.

Use the whole profile

Combine language information with strengths, current classroom work, content learning, history, and context.

Act on evidence

Turn forms and dashboards into a named support, responsible person, progress measure, and follow-up date.

Close the loop

Confirm the approved decision, official record, family communication, retained evidence, and next monitoring cycle.

Official Ellevation and California Resources

Use current product documentation, CDE guidance, and the district’s approved policies and configuration.

Ellevation Solution Overview Identification, Placement, and Planning Instruction and Strategies Measurement and Progress Security and Privacy CDE Reclassification CDE RFEP Monitoring CALPADS

2026–27 edition. Public Ellevation product, instruction, security, and update pages and current California Department of Education reclassification, RFEP monitoring, and CALPADS resources reviewed September 12, 2026. Product components, data feeds, forms, permissions, student-facing tools, assessment access, family communication, and interfaces depend on the active district agreement and configuration. Ellevation supports program work; each LEA remains responsible for locally approved decisions, official records, required notices, data quality, and compliance. No district-usage count is stated. Classroom examples and conceptual illustrations are SDLA material.