1. Monitoring Children’s Progress
Screening and Assessment Basics
New York State Education Department
Office of Early Learning
July 18, 2017

2. Screening Requirement
8 NYCRR, Part 117 – Requires districts to screen all new entrants
“New entrant” means a student entering the NYS public school system, pre-kindergarten through grade 12 for the first time, or reentering a NYS public school with no available record of prior screening.

3. Why screen? Three limited purposes:
Identify children who are possibly gifted
Identify children who have or are suspected of having a disability
Identify children who are possibly limited English proficient

4. Areas to be screened Screening must include:
Health exam by a health care provider, or evidence of such exam
Immunization record
Vision and hearing
Language development, cognitive development, and cognitive development
Whether the child is of foreign birth or ancestry and comes from a home where a language other than English is spoken as determined through a home language questionnaire or informal interview

5. When to screen?
New entrants should be screened prior to the school year, if possible
No later than December 1st of the school year of entry
Or within 15 days if the student enters after December 1st of the school year

6. Other screening considerations
Screening tools are selected by the district
Screening tools must be valid and reliable
Staff administering screenings must be appropriately trained or qualified
Preferably screenings should be conducted by persons appropriately trained or qualified in the student’s native language if the home language is other than English

7. What screening is not
Screening results, alone, do not provide enough information to determine children’s strengths and needs.
Screening results should not be used to:
diagnose children as having special needs.
preclude children from participating in a program.
evaluate program effectiveness.

8. Questions and Discussion
What screening tools are used by your district?
Who administers developmental screenings to:
children in public school classrooms?
children in CBO classrooms?
Who administers vision and hearing screenings to:
Children in public school classrooms?
Children in CBO classrooms?
How is screening information shared between district and CBOs?

9. Assessment Requirements
8 NYCRR, Section (b) - Requires district to establish a process for establishing a developmental baseline and assess the progress of all children participating in the program
Must assess, at a minimum, language development, cognitive development and social-emotional development
Assessment instrument must be valid and reliable
Use of “traditional standardized tests” is prohibited
Districts must ensure that the measures of student outcomes will not be used to prohibit or discourage a child’s enrollment in kindergarten.

10. Valid and Reliable
Reliability is the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and consistent results.
Validity refers to how well a test measures what it is purported to measure.
Both are necessary. If your scale is off by 5 lbs., it reads your weight every day with an excess of 5lbs. The scale is reliable because it consistently reports the same weight every day, but it is not valid because it adds 5lbs to your true weight. It is not a valid measure of your weight.

11. 1. Developmental Baseline
A type of pre-assessment that provides a thorough evaluation of skill level, abilities, and/or knowledge that a child possesses prior to the beginning of formal instruction
Also serves as a comparative measure to determine the amount of student growth throughout the school year
Timeframe: Beginning of the assessment period (typically at the beginning of the school year)

12. 2. Progress Monitoring
The National Research Council defines progress monitoring as “assessment conducted to examine students’ academic performance and evaluate the effectiveness of instruction. Progress is monitored on a regular basis by comparing expected and actual rates of learning.”
Must be closely aligned to a standards-based curriculum to ensure validity
One tool may not address all areas a district wants to assess
Timeframe: On-going throughout the year

13. 3. Summative Assessment
The National Research Council defines summative assessment as “assessment that typically documents how much learning has occurred at a point in time; its purpose is to measure the level of child, school, or program success.”
The same tool that was used to establish a developmental base-line would be suitable for a summative assessment.
Timeframe: Typically at the end of the school year

14. Uses of Assessments To inform classroom instruction
To identify professional development needs
To monitor and track program effectiveness
To inform program practice

15. Quality Improvement Standards for Child Screening and Assessment
CSA-1: The district has a child screening and assessment process that:
complies with applicable regulations;
includes procedures for collecting and protecting assessment results; and
provisions for sharing results with families.
CSA-2: The district uses a developmental screening tool that is valid and reliable.

16. Quality Improvement Standards – cont’d
CSA-3: The district documents the developmental progress of each child three times per school year using a child development assessment tool(s) that is valid and reliable. (fall, mid-year, spring)
CSA-4: The district can document that assessment results are used to inform instruction and to address the needs of individual children.
CSA-5: The district can document that aggregated assessment results are used to inform program practice.

17. Questions and Discussion
What assessment tools are used by your district?
Who administers developmental assessments to:
children in public school classrooms?
children in CBO classrooms?
How is assessment information shared between district and CBOs?
How is assessment information used?