DAC 8/31/2020

 

Back-to-School Trainings Released

The Office of Assessment and Accountability (OAA) has released several training videos and PowerPoints in time for the opening of school. The Back-to-School trainings are available on the Meetings and Trainings page and on the individual assessment pages. The highlighted link below shares the Alternate Assessment recording specific to the Alternate K-PREP as well as the PowerPoint that accompanies the recording.

• ACCESSfor ELLs [Video and PowerPoint]
• Alternate Assessment[Video and PowerPoint]
• ACT[Video, PowerPoint and Fall Testing Guidance Document] Note: This training was recorded July 30 and does not reflect the additional Oct. 20 testing date.
• End-of-Course[Video, PowerPoint and EOC Guidance Document]
• Kindergarten Screen[Video and PowerPoint]

Important Links

Alternate K-PREP Communications
Alternate K-PREP Targets-Kentucky Academic Standards
Alternate K-PREP Resources
Alternate K-PREP Systems Page-(security updates being made) 
Alternate K-PREP TrainingsCareer
Readiness Database (CRD)-(security updates being made)
Kentucky Academic Standards
Online Training System (OTS)-(security updates being made)
Student Registration Database (SRD)-(security updates being made)

DAC email 8/30/2020

 

Alternate K-PREP Information

There have been several items linked to the Alternate K-PREP release leading up to the start of the 2020-2021 school year. This information will be beneficial to teachers and administrators as the new school year kicks off.

Kentucky Academic Standards-Alternate Assessment Targets (Reading and Mathematics): Released May 15

Kentucky Academic Standards-Alternate Assessment Targets (Social Studies and Writing): Released June 18

Alternate K-PREP Calendar
Alternate K-PREP Changes/Updates 2020-2021|
Alternate K-PREP Test Requirements
Alternate K-PREP Teachers Resources PPT

lternate K-PREP Resources: Direct link to everything posted above.
Kentucky Academic Standards-Alternate K-PREP: Alternate Assessment Targets for selected Kentucky Academic Standards

DAC email 8/25/2020 All Things ACT

 

All Things ACT...

ACT TAA Deadline Extended - Reminder

On Friday, Aug. 14, ACT migrated the Test Accessibility and Accommodations (TAA) login page to the ACT Success Knowledge Hub. Unfortunately, this change was not timely communicated to all users; therefore, it caused confusion for those attempting to access the system on Friday. To ensure all users have ample opportunity to submit their accommodation requests, ACT is extending the deadline to request accommodations through Tuesday, Aug. 25. ACT has updated a training tutorial on How to Access TAA.

TAA Hosted Open Office Hours - Reminder

Test Coordinators and Test Accommodations Coordinators are invited to attend an open office hours session hosted by ACT accommodations staff members. They are dedicated to answering your questions about accommodations and support requests. The open office hours are live webinars. Please see registration links and times below:

Monday, Aug. 24

• Time: 4 p.m.–5 p.m. CT

Tuesday, Aug. 25

• Time: 9 a.m.–10 a.m. CT
• Time:1 p.m.–2 p.m. CT 

ACT-Authorized Accommodations Late Consideration

The TAA system is used to request late consideration for ACT-approved accommodations for eligible examinees. Eligibility is limited to students who have a newly defined disability, students with medical emergencies or sudden medical onset, or students with previously approved accommodations transferring from another Kentucky school. The TAA system will reopen Friday, Aug. 28 through Sept. 18, to complete the Late Consideration Form and upload supporting documentation. The form can be found in tray three at the Kentucky ACT Site.

ACT - Additional Order Materials

If additional standard time testing materials are needed for the Sept. 22 test date, the window to order the materials begins on Friday, Aug. 28 through Sept. 11. Directions for ordering the supplemental materials can be found under the Order Materials section of the PAN User Guide.

ACT Non-College Reportable Accommodations Materials

The school test coordinator authorizes non-college reportable accommodations test materials (NCR) as appropriate for examinees. These are not requested through the TAA system. The test coordinator is responsible for ordering non-college reportable accommodations test materials in PAN for each examinee who needs them. The window to order NCR material begins on Friday, Aug. 28 through Sept. 11. Directions for ordering the NCR materials can be found under the Order Materials section of the PAN User Guide.

Spring 2020 ACT Scores in Infinite Campus (IC)

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) strives to publish student results data in IC as it becomes available. In this spirit, the Junior ACT test from the 2019–2020 school year has been imported into IC. These are the test results from last spring for students who were able to test. The fall 2020 ACT scores will be imported whenever they become available.

KDE will publish these scores to all districts beginning on Aug. 25, 2020.  Please email Raymond Carter with any questions on this matter.

DAC email 8/25/2020 OCTE WBL guidance

 The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) Office of Career and Technical Education (OCTE) has released COVID-19 Guidance for Work-Based Learning for all students for this year. It is strongly encouraged, where possible, that these WBL opportunities within business and/or industry continue this year.

However, the current crisis is placing strains on districts to ensure that the needs of all student learners are met and that opportunities for WBL are still made available for all students. The KDE has produced the following language for temporary flexibility around the required WBL requirements of the Employability Skills Attainment Record (ESAR) and the courses leading to the Career Work Experience Certification (CWEC):

The KDE will temporarily offer flexibility in where and how these WBL opportunities are offered during this state of emergency as long as such options continue to align to CWEC course content and standards (Employability and Foundational Standards: Alternate Assessment. These options must continue to allow the student to learn, practice and demonstrate workplace skills, but will offer these through additional methods and settings. 

 OCTE will be providing a guidance document offering alternative ways to provide WBL for students, but this document will not be all inclusive and should be used to help districts determine new ideas for these options. This guidance document is not yet available, but it is important that schools know that this flexibility will be available this school year. At this time, the plan is to post the full guidance document within the next two weeks. This guidance document should be used primarily for students that are 100% virtual this school year, but it is understood that some students may have other extenuating circumstances, due to the crisis, that would prevent them from accomplishing this in the traditional business and/or industry setting.

For any questions or concerns, please contact Kiley Whitaker, Assistant Director of the Division of Technical Schools and Continuous Improvement.

DAC email 8/21/2020

 

ACT TAA Deadline Extended

On Friday, Aug. 14, ACT migrated the Test Accessibility and Accommodations (TAA) login page to http://success.act.org. Unfortunately, this change was not timely communicated to all users; therefore, it caused confusion for those attempting to access the system on Friday. To ensure all users have ample opportunity to submit their accommodation requests, ACT is extending the deadline to request accommodations through Tuesday, Aug. 25. ACT has updated a training tutorial on How to Access TAA.

TAA Hosted Open Office Hours

Test Coordinators and Test Accommodations Coordinators are invited to attend an open office hours session, hosted by ACT accommodations staff members, dedicated to answering your questions about accommodations and supports requests.

Friday, Aug. 21

• Time: 8 a.m.–9 a.m. central time
• Time: 12 p.m.–1 p.m. central time
• Time: 4 p.m.–5 p.m. central time

Monday, Aug. 24

• Time: 8 a.m.–9 a.m. central time

Tuesday, Aug. 25

• Time: 9 a.m.–10 a.m. central time
• Time:1 p.m.–2 p.m. central time

For support with ACT testing, please contact Shara Savage, Office of Assessment and Accountability, Division of Assessment and Accountability Support, via email or by phone 502-564-4394.

DAC email 8/18/2020

 

Back-to-School Trainings Released

The Office of Assessment and Accountability (OAA) is releasing several training videos and PowerPoints in time for the opening of school. The Back-to-School trainings are available on the Meetings and Trainings page and on the individual assessment pages.

• Alternate Assessment [Video and PowerPoint]
• ACT [Video, PowerPoint and Fall Testing Guidance Document] Note: This training was recorded July 30 and does not reflect the additional Oct. 20 testing date.
• End-of-Course [Video, PowerPoint and EOC Guidance Document]

Announcing the Fall 2020 Teaching and Learning PL Series: Eliciting Evidence of Learning

A professional learning experience will be released each month to support educators with eliciting evidence for learning, whether in a face to face or remote learning environment. Each professional learning experience will be accompanied by an informational video and made available on KYstandards.org. The release of all materials will be communicated first through the Standards Newsletter.

The Teaching and Learning PL Series: Eliciting Evidence of Learning schedule is available for download.

Sept. 16: Comprehensive, Balanced System of Assessment 

Participants will learn about the components of a comprehensive, balanced assessment system and how different assessments can work together to support student learning. The module will take a closer look at the types and purposes of different assessments, appropriate uses of assessment data and build an understanding of the assessment cycle. 

Oct. 14: Understanding Formative Assessment 

Participants will build a common understanding of formative assessment practice. The module will both define formative assessment and take a closer look at the assessment cycle in the formative assessment process. In addition, the module will focus on taking a closer look at developing student ownership through building a culture of formative assessment practices in the classroom.

Nov. 18: Clarifying and Sharing Learning Goals and Success Criteria 

Participants will learn about how the standards and associated learning expectations inform high quality assessment. The module will focus on how to elicit meaningful evidence of student learning through clarification of learning progressions, learning goals and success criteria.  

Dec. 9: Eliciting Evidence of Learning 

In section 1 of this module, participants will learn about designing and eliciting evidence of student learning aligned to the standards. The module will take a closer look at strategies for eliciting evidence aligned to the depth of the standard and criteria for high-quality classroom assessments.  

In section 2, participants will learn about valid assessment practices. The module also will consider how to ensure assessment practices are culturally relevant and free from unintended barriers.

DAC email 8/17/2020

ACT Administration Options-- 

Depending on the individual school or district situation, there are three opportunities for students who missed their opportunity to take the ACT in March to test.

Sept. 22 -- Initial Standard Test Date (Paper)
Sept. 22-25 and 28-Oct. 2 – Initial Accommodations Test Window (Paper)

Oct. 6 – Makeup Standard Test Date (Paper)
Oct. 6-9 and 12 -- Makeup Accommodations Test Window (Paper)

Oct. 20 -- Emergency Standard Test Date (Paper)
Oct. 20-23 and 26 -- Emergency Accommodations Test Window (Paper)

Note: If students are unable to attend in-person sessions during fall testing, eligible students will have the opportunity to take the state-provided ACT assessment during the spring 2021 administration.

If districts or schools were unable to administer the statewide ACT on March 10, please choose two of the above testing windows. If schools or districts were able to administer the statewide ACT, March 10 was the school's initial ACT testing window and may choose one of the above testing windows. If a school or district chooses a testing window and is unable to bring students into the building due to COVID-19 restrictions, there is a small window for adjustments to the testing window to be made.

The decision to bring students into the building for administration of the ACT should be made in conjunction with the high school administration, central office staff and local health department. These decisions should be made in accordance with local health department and state government guidelines at the time of testing. Safety expectations provided in the document, COVID-19 Considerations for Reopening Schools should be followed during administration. The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) has worked with the Department of Public Health to create additional guidance on small group administration. KDE anticipates a release of small group guidance this week with discussion in the Superintendent Webcast tomorrow, Tuesday, Aug. 18.

If a school has already completed the Manage Participation task in PearsonAccess^next (PAN) and selected the Sept. 22 testing window and cannot test during the window, please update the selected test date to Oct. 6. This will prevent testing materials for the Sept. date from being shipped to the school. If unable to test on Oct. 6 and were planning on testing on Oct. 20, still select the Oct. 6 test date. When ordering test materials, Building Assessment Coordinators (BACs) or a designee can select the appropriate makeup testing windows.

As a reminder, the deadline to submit participation in the 2020 Fall ACT State Administration is Aug. 21. For more information, please see the new training tutorial available at the Kentucky State Testing ACT webpage.

ACT TAA Deadline Extended

On Friday, Aug. 14, ACT migrated the Test Accessibility and Accommodations (TAA) login page to http://success.act.org. Unfortunately, this change was not timely communicated to all users; therefore, it caused confusion for those attempting to access the system on Friday. To ensure all users have ample opportunity to submit their accommodation requests, ACT is extending the deadline to request accommodations through Wednesday, Aug. 19.

Test Accommodations Coordinator Role in TAA

With the move to ACT Success Online Reporting, everyone with access to TAA will have the role of Test Accommodations Coordinator (TAC). Authorization for access to the TAA system will follow the Trusted Agent protocol. Trusted Agents manage user access for districts and schools in their jurisdiction. Only Trusted Agents are approved to invite users to act as a TAC in the system.

Updated Documentation

The Test Accessibility and Accommodations System (TAA) User Guide has been updated with new information about accessing the system, the Test Accommodations Coordinator (TAC) role, and creating a new account. It can be found on the ACT State testing webpage, as outlined below.

Verify ACT Student Enrollment Deadline

The deadline to complete the verification of student enrollment is Friday, Aug. 21. KDE has provided a Student Data Upload (SDU) file to ACT, and ACT has loaded the file into PearsonAccess^next (PAN). The student records have been created in PAN. Test Coordinators must verify student counts and make any updates. If needing to add students who missed their opportunity to test in the spring, Aug. 17 is the deadline to notify KDE; please email Shara Savage. Adding students to PAN is not an option for the fall administration. Directions for verifying enrollment counts begin on page 11 of The PAN User Guide. The students loaded in PAN are used to generate initial testing counts for standard test material orders. Schools receive pre-ID labels in the initial shipment for those students who are enrolled before the verify deadline. If a student is unenrolled in PAN, please keep a record. Once the Student Data Review and Rosters (SDRR) application opens, the District Assessment Coordinator (DAC) will need to request a non-participation.