Friday, February 21, 2020

Student Success Literacy Status Indicators Plus Other News and Updates

Important Notice
The winter screening window has closed and there are new features in Student Success. Please read below for information about Literacy Status calculations in Student Success and other new features.

Literacy Status in Student Success

  • The Student Success system is now calculating literacy status. You will now find the following tools that use this information.
    • Each student’s current literacy status will be displayed on the student page in the demographic array (gray boxes under the student’s name).
    • Literacy Status will be an option under “view by” on the left menu, meaning that you will be able to break down data views by literacy status.
    • You will also be able to filter by literacy status on most views. You will be able to make smart groups based on the filters that you can call up any time.
    • Color coding is not used for literacy status anywhere in the Student Success system. Red, Yellow and Green are Panorama’s color codes for at benchmark, below, and far below benchmark. Please don't confuse them for literacy status.
  • The basic logic for literacy status determinations are as follows:

Student's Literacy Status Designation (previous screening window)
Student's Score for the Current Screening Window
Student's New Literacy Status Designation
Adequately Progressing
At/Above Benchmark
Adequately Progressing
Adequately Progressing
Below Benchmark
At-Risk
Adequately Progressing
No Score
Adequately Progressing
At-Risk
At/Above Benchmark
Adequately Progressing
At-Risk
Below Benchmark
Persistently At-Risk
At-Risk
No Score
At-Risk
Persistently At-Risk
At/Above Benchmark
At-Risk
Persistently At-Risk
Below Benchmark
Persistently At-Risk
Persistently At-Risk
No Score
Persistently At-Risk
Cannot Determine/No Status
At/Above Benchmark
Adequately Progressing
Cannot Determine/No Status
Below Benchmark
At-Risk
Cannot Determine/No Status
No Score
Cannot Determine/No Status

  • The system will use any available Spring 2019 to calculate the student’s Fall literacy status.
    • For students with no Spring 2019 default assessment data available, the Spring status will be interpreted as “cannot be determined” when calculating the Fall 2019 status.
    • There should be very few, if any, cases where these calculations result in a discrepancy from locally determined literacy status for the Winter literacy status. In all cases, err on the side of providing appropriate support to students to help them close the gap.
Early Literacy Implementation
  • This is probably a good time to remind people of the ELI requirements (which have not changed). Here’s a very brief version of the big ideas, followed by a link to the full ELI guidance and support documentation
    • Students with a literacy status of At Risk are required to have weekly PM. Parent/family communication and intervention during this time are strongly encouraged, but not required by law.
    • Students with a literacy status of Persistently At Risk are required to have intervention, progress monitoring and parent/family communications about the child’s needs and school efforts to address those needs.
    • We encourage you to read the ELI in the FAST Lane article which can be found in the Iowa section of the FAST knowledge base and a similar article in the Student Success Resource Library for ideas on how to implement ELI in a child-friendly/parent-friendly way.
    • Click here to access all of the ELI support documents, guidance and legal requirements:https://educateiowa.gov/pk-12/instruction/literacy/early-literacy-implementation-eli
Healthy Indicator reports
  • You may notice a few subtle changes in reports as we continue to refine the way the system interprets enrollment changes and other nuances that may affect counts.
  • Please keep in mind that the function of these reports is to provide big picture views of key processes related to MTSS. It is most important to attend to the opportunities to identify system improvements, and less important to be concerned about minor discrepancies and nuances. There are NO accountability actions tied to these indicators. They are not used for ESSA determinations, school report cards, etc. School teams may use them in their own self-study as they develop an understanding of local practices and a search for places to improve those practices.
  • Quality MTSS implementation begins with an evidence-based universal tier of instruction that meets the needs of 80% of students without further intervention (HI #3). The system perspective is important because it is difficult to intervene out of a curriculum and instruction problem without also attending to the universal tier.
  • Now that the Winter window is closed, HI reports 2 and 5 will initially be blank and slowly “fill” with data week by week. That is not surprising, given the nature of these reports. Expect these summaries to be volatile and less helpful in the beginning, becoming more consistent and meaningful as the year progresses.
  • We will soon be posting information in the Student Success resource library about using the healthy indicator reports to support systems improvement.
Where to go when you need help or have a question:
Sometimes it's hard to know which system to use, but seeking help in the right system will speed assistance. One general guideline is to report the issue in the system where you see the issue. The Early Warning System (EWS) team at the DE provides support for both FAST and Student Success; however, they are products of different companies with separate systems used for documentation and submission of support requests. Support requests in the wrong system causes delays and confusion. EdPortal is supported by a different team, although the EWS team can assist with Student Success permission troubleshooting. See: Support Map for Users for a printable quick-reference guide support for the three systems.
  • FAST: Click Knowledge Base (documentation) or Support (ask questions/request help) in the upper left corner of FAST. There is an Iowa specific section in the FAST Knowledge Base under General > Iowa Resources that contains many Iowa-specific supports. If you do not have access to the Iowa section, please let us know via a support ticket.
  • Student Success: There are a few different ways to find information or get help but quickest way is to click Need Help? in the lower right corner of Student Success. A supplementary training doc on finding resources and assistance, including animated visuals, is available in this document: Finding help and resources in Student Success.
  • EdPortal: Tutorials and support contact information are available on the EdPortal home page.
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~ Connor Hood and Janell Brandhorst, Iowa Department of Education

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