Assessment and Accountability Update

January 14, 2021

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TEST ADMINISTRATION

ELPA

Comprehensive ELPA Guidance Update Published

ODE’s guidance document Administering the ELPA Screener in 2020-21 has been comprehensively updated. It now includes information on English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA) Summative testing, “unique screening” in 2021, and has been reviewed for consistency with recent updates to statewide health and safety guidance. This document, which has been retitled as Administering the ELPA Screener and Summative in 2020-21, can be found on the ELP Assessment page, under the Guidance pulldown.

Administering the ELPA Screener and Summative in 2020-21 can also be found on the Assessment Training Materials page, under the Training Modules pulldown. As it updates a required ELPA training material, district personnel who will administer the ELPA Screener or Summative in 2020-21 must review this updated guidance.

Please contact Ben Wolcott with questions or concerns.

Required ELPA Training Update

The Guidance pulldown also includes Administering the ELPA Screener and Summative in 2020-21 (published in early January). This document contains a comprehensive update to previously issued guidance on ELPA administration in 2020-21. As this guidance replaces required ELPA training material, Test Administrators and District Test Coordinators who will engage in ELPA testing in the 2020-21 school year must review this updated guidance.

Please contact Ben Wolcott with questions or concerns.

Guidance Added to ELP Assessment Page (REPEAT)

The English Language Proficiency Assessment page now contains a “Guidance” pulldown menu, with links to guidance specific to the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA). Two documents under this menu contain guidance that was previously disseminated to districts on an individual basis, but are now being made available to the general public:

• Private School Participation in ELPA Testing
• Domain Exemptions on ELPA

Please contact Ben Wolcott with questions or concerns.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

NEW OSAS ELA Anchor Papers Released (REPEAT)

The Oregon Department of Education in collaboration with Smarter Balanced is pleased to share the Smarter Annotated Response Tool (SmART). This new interactive website contains new resources to support educators in understanding how student writing is scored on the Oregon Statewide Summative Assessment for English language arts using the Smarter Balanced scoring rubrics. ODE and Smarter Balanced have worked with both Oregon educators and other state educators to develop annotations that describe grade-level expectations and identify the specific traits that contribute to a student’s score.

Educators can use SmART for a variety of purposes, including to:

• gain insight into grade-level expectations for each score point of each trait scored for ELA full writes,
• learn about specific qualities of high-scoring responses to help inform classroom writing instruction, and
• create professional development materials for teachers who might be unfamiliar with, or desire more practice scoring student writing.

For additional questions related to the SmART website and tools, please refer to the SmART informational flyer (PDF) or contact Tony Bertrand, ELA Assessment Specialist.

ACCOUNTABILITY & REPORTING

Cohort Graduation and Dropout District Webinar

A webinar will be held at 11 AM on January 19, 2021 for districts to view the statewide cohort graduation and NCES dropout data, prior to the public release on January 21. District administrators should have already received the login information for this webinar. If you would like to participate and did not receive the login information, please contact Peter Rudy. The PowerPoint slides from this webinar will be posted on the Cohort Graduation Rate website along with the statewide data on January 21, 2021.

2020-2021 Fall Membership Validation (REPEAT)

This is a reminder that the Fall Membership validation closes on January 22, 2021. No changes will be allowed after that date. For more information see the “2020-2021 Fall Membership Validation” article that was posted in the January 7 A&A Update article. If you have questions or need the First Period ADM collection re-opened, please contact your Regional ESD Partners or Robin Stalcup.