DeSSA Accessibility Guidelines Online Training, General Education Students With Supports Helen Dennis – Office of Assessment Sarah Celestin – Exceptional Children (Special Education) Terry Richard – Exceptional Children (ELL/Migrant) October2014 1

Purpose of this Training Session Become familiar with: Identification of “General Ed with Supports” students, or “GWS” Smarter Designated Supports, or “Supports” Selection of Supports for GWS Identifying a school’s decision makers for GWS Expected school level documentation for GWS Forms and Databases 2

DeSSA Accessibility Guidelines This document provides guidelines for making decisions about the inclusion in assessments of students with disabilities (SWD), English language learners (ELL), students who are classified as both (SWD/ELL); “General Ed Students With Supports,” (students not identified as SWD or ELL that may be provided supports during assessments) 3

What is DeSSA? Delaware System of Student Assessments Includes Smarter, DCAS, DCAS ALT 1, SAT/PSAT, ACCESS/ALT ACCESS, NAEP 4

Smarter Content Areas: – ELA: Items measuring reading, listening, writing, research – Mathematics Accommodations and Supports for SWDs Supports for ELLs and Gen Ed students receiving supports Universal tools for all 5

Smarter 6

What are Smarter “Designated Supports?” Another name for an accessibility feature of the test that is available to selected groups – Available to more student-types than Smarter Accommodations – Might be called accommodations on another test (i.e. DCAS) – Might be called universal tools on another test 7

What are the Available Supports? Embedded 3.01 Color contrast (on- screen) 3.02 Masking 3.03 Text-to-speech for items 3.04 Translated test directions 3.05 Translations (glossaries) 3.06 Spanish Translations (stacked) 3.07 Turn off any universal tools Non-Embedded 4.01 Bilingual dictionary 4.02 Color Contrast (printed) 4.03 Color overlays 4.04 Magnification 4.05 Human Reader - items 4.06 Scribe 4.07 Separate Setting 4.08 Translations (glossaries) 4.09 Translated test directions 4.10 Paper/Pencil 4.11 Noise Buffers 8

What are Universal Tools? Accessibility feature available to all students – No need to select prior to test – Student selects independently/spontaneously during the test Smarter Balanced Module on Embedded Universal Tools and Online Features : – Narrated module: nRLZWs/edit?pli=1 nRLZWs/edit?pli=1 – Non-narrated module: T29iZms/edit?pli=1 T29iZms/edit?pli=1 9

Embedded vs. Non Embedded Supports Embedded*: delivered online via the browser Non-Embedded: provided in the classroom by staff 10

Relationship Between Designated Supports in the Classroom and in Assessment 11 Smarter Supports Classroom Supports

Identifying GWS Students NON-ELL, NON-SWD If a student is ELL=Y or SWD=Y, then they are not permitted to be GWS=Y. Exited ELLs can become GWS=Y after exiting Students must be identified as GWS and supports selected prior to test administration – Embedded supports must be entered into Assessment Accommodations Database (IMS) at least 3 days prior to test administration 12

Identifying GWS Students, Cont’d Consider the following students: – Struggling and at-risk students – Students receiving RTI interventions – Students referred to the school’s problem-solving team – Students with physical injuries Supports should be identified by a team: – RTI Committee/PLC – Problem Solving Team (IST/ICT/SIT) – English Language Acquisition Committee (ELAC) 13

Within-District Process and Structures for GWS Recommended that more than one educator participate in the – identification of students – selection of supports for individuals District- or School- Specific—State does not dictate Depends on your building’s structure and existing mechanisms Documentation should be clear and present but is not required to be the same as required for students with IEPs. Use the existing forms provide in Accessibility Guidelines. 14

How to Flag Student as Gen Ed w/Supports Follow these steps after identifying a student to receive supports on the Smarter assessments as a general education student: 1.Log in to ESchool 2.Go to the Accountability screen. 3.Flag the student “Y” as a general education student receiving supports. 4.Wait overnight for the student’s data to “roll up” to DELSIS. 5.Enter the student’s supports in the Assessment Accommodations database. Please contact your Eschool support contact with any questions regarding data entry.

Eschool Accountability Screen How to Formally Document a General Education Student Receiving Supports in the Pupil Accounting and Accommodations Systems Page 36 of Guidelines.

Designated Supports: Selecting Supports Based on student’s documented needs – Consider data about student performance with and without the support – Compare observational data or curriculum-based measures with and without the support to select Must be used during classroom instruction – Familiar to the student – Try out different supports during the practice test More Supports are not necessarily BETTER for the student! – Selection should be customized for student needs 17

What are the Available Supports? Embedded 3.01 Color contrast (on- screen) 3.02 Masking 3.03 Text-to-speech for items 3.04 Translated test directions 3.05 Translations (glossaries) 3.06 Spanish Translations (stacked) 3.07 Turn off any universal tools Non-Embedded 4.01 Bilingual dictionary 4.02 Color Contrast (printed) 4.03 Color overlays 4.04 Magnification 4.05 Human Reader - items 4.06 Scribe 4.07 Separate Setting 4.08 Translations (glossaries) 4.09 Translated test directions 4.10 Paper/Pencil 4.11 Noise Buffers 18

Text-to-Speech (TTS) and Human Reader Questions Questions/Items Embedded (TTS) Grades 3-5Available – also activates TTS passages on ELA PT. Grades 6-8 Non-Embedded (Human Reader) Grades 3-5Available – also includes reading of passages on ELA PT. Grades 6-8 Smarter is expected to announce that TTS will be available in Spanish, as well as English, as a support for spring 2015.

Language Translation Supports SupportSmarter ELA/Math Full Spanish Translation – Stacked (online) Available for Math only (not permitted for ELA) Full translation in Other Languages (besides Spanish) Not available. Human Interpreter/Translator NOT PERMITTED. Print Glossary or word to word dictionary Available from Smarter in 10 languages. Use of non- smarter-produced glossary not permitted. For MATH only. Online glossary or word-to- word dictionary Available for 10 languages with audio. For MATH only. 20

21 Translated Glossaries & Full Translations (Supports) Following languages are listed in the Smarter Accommodation & Supports “Frequently Asked Questions” Full translation for Spanish (“stacked” with English ) Math only (not ELA) Vietnamese Arabic Tagalog Ilokano Cantonese Mandarin Korean Punjabi Russian Ukrainian

Do’s and Don’ts for Selecting Supports Do’s Do…make support decisions based on individualized needs (e.g., the student’s amount of time in the country, disability needs) Do…be specific about the content area test on which the support is needed Do…evaluate supports used by the student Do…get input about supports from teachers and students, and use it to make decisions Do…select supports that have been routinely used during instruction Do…select supports based on documented student learning needs Don’ts Don’t…make support decisions based on whatever is easiest to do Don’t…check every support possible on a checklist simply to be “safe” Don’t…assume the same supports remain appropriate year after year Don’t…provide an assessment support for the first time on the day of a test Don’t…assume certain supports, such as text-to-speech for test questions, are appropriate for every student in every content area Don’t…use a support that is not related to a documented need Adapted from the CCSSO Accommodations Manual,

Designated Supports Timeline When can I plan supports? – Any time before the assessment. When can I enter supports into the Assessment Accommodations Database? – Between test windows – during the planned test window, prior to testing – With 3 days prior to testing, (number specified in DeSSA Test Administrator Training) – Do not enter accommodations for before spring 2015 window closes (June 4). When should the student start using the supports? – In the classroom – as soon as it can benefit the student – On the test – after the student becomes proficient in the support after it is showing in the TIDE database 23

Accommodations Form 24

Accommodations Listings/Forms Smarter Example 25

Documenting Supports in the Assessment Accommodations Database Access Via IMS Contains Accommodations and Supports for – Students with Disabilities (IEP, 504) – ELLs – Gen Ed with Supports Enter, List, or Report Accommodations and Supports Data for AIR TIDE (Test Information Distribution Engine) is extracted from it

Opening Screen (“Search” Screen)  Students with IEP’s

Search Results Screen Edit, View

Student-Related Reports Currently-DCAS only

Report Results Screen Save, Print

Steps to Flag Student as Gen Ed w/Supports Follow these steps after identifying a student to receive supports on the Smarter assessments as a general education student: 1.Log in to ESchool 2.Go to the Accountability screen. 3.Flag the student “Y” as a general education student receiving supports. 4.Wait overnight for the student’s data to “roll up” to DELSIS. 5.Enter the student’s supports in the Assessment Accommodations database. Please contact your Eschool support contact with any questions regarding data entry.

Eschool Accountability Screen How to Formally Document a General Education Student Receiving Supports in the Pupil Accounting and Accommodations Systems Page 36 of Guidelines.

Smarter Reset Policy Wrong Accoms the most frequent reason for reset request on DCAS Different from previous DCAS Reset Policy If student answered 5 or more items, no reset will be granted. – If the test was administered incorrectly (i.e., the wrong accommodations were provided), the test will be invalidated, and the student will not get another opportunity to test. If the student answered fewer than 5 items, a reset can be granted. – If the test was administered incorrectly, the test reset will give you another chance to administer the test correctly. DCAS/EOC will adopt the new Smarter reset policy. 33

AIR TIDE In , TIDE will contain all information related to – Smarter ELA/Math – DCAS Science/Social Studies – EOC Alg II/IM III, US History – DCAS ALT 1 ELA/Math/Science/Social Studies Student will have one record in TIDE that has the info for all his/her tests 34

Future Updates to Accessibility Guidelines Additional updates and clarifications are likely between now and spring 2015 testing Look out on DOE website and DCAS Portal – Updates memo – Updated Accommodations form Expected future updates – Announcement regarding Spanish TTS 35

Upcoming Training DOE Training on how to use the Assessment Accommodations Database Smarter module on universal tools 36

Questions Sarah Celestin – Students with Disabilities o o Terry Richard – English Language Learners o o Helen Dennis – Office of Assessment o o 37