ELP Assessment Update [July 10, 2024]
We appreciate you sharing a little of your time on these beautiful summer days to preview and prepare for the upcoming screening season. Below is some information to help you plan for screening as we begin the year. Screening for grades 1-12 can begin on August 1.
TA training is an annual requirement for those who are administering WIDA Screener. TAs must complete training and pass the appropriate quiz before administering the screener. Training for the 2023-24 school year must be completed on or after July 1, 2023. The trainings on the portal will say 2022-23 school year until September 1. As long as the date of completion is after July 1, the training can be used for the 2023-24 school year.
Training for WIDA ACCESS annual testing is not available on the WIDA Secure Portal until September 1. OSPI’s recommendation is to complete WIDA ACCESS training no earlier than December 1.
The WIDA Store has a process for ordering materials for Kindergarten Screener. Only district level staff can order materials for WIDA Kindergarten Screener. The process is outlined below.
- Districts will place their order directly online through the WIDA Store.
- Kindergarten Screener items are located under the MODEL/Screener Assessment heading in the green Shop Products bar
- Answer "no" to the tax exempt question.
- Select "Purchase Order" as the payment method at checkout and submit the order. This is essentially a quote. Districts won't be sending a PO.
- Districts will receive an itemized order confirmation email.
- Districts must forward the order confirmation email to ELPAssessments@k12.wa.us for approval.
- The state will forward the order confirmation to the WIDA Store upon approval. OSPI will review orders on Tuesdays each week through August and September and then monthly through June.
- The WIDA store will process the order and send the invoice to OSPI.
OSPI is bringing back Lunch with Leslie for the 2023-24 school year. This is an opportunity on Mondays at noon for districts to hear updates from OSPI, ask questions about WIDA assessments, or find out how other districts are approaching testing processes. This is a casual opportunity for collaboration and information sharing and any district staff involved with ELP assessments is welcome to attend. Links to these Zoom events can be found on the ELP Assessments page.
If you have students who cannot participate in the screener or students who have reached their limit in testing, there is an option called “End Domain Incomplete.” This option should be used only sparingly and only for students who, even with breaks and other accommodations cannot complete testing. This is not an option for students whose performance indicates eligibility for program early in the test.
Students must be offered an opportunity to test in each domain unless they qualify for a domain exemption. Domain exemptions are available for a student
- whose disability prevents them from accessing a domain as part of their regular communication and
- who cannot access the domain test even with accommodations
To End Domain Incomplete for Listening and Reading domains, begin the test and test the student. If the student reaches a point at which they can no longer participate in the test, end the test. If the student begins the test and cannot engage with the first item, offer the second item. If the student still cannot respond, determine if this is a result of behavior and the test should be paused and the student can complete testing at a later time, or if the situation is a result of a disability and the domain should be ended incomplete. For the Reading and Listening domains, a student whose test is ended incomplete will receive an automatic score of 1.
To End Domain Incomplete for Speaking and Writing domains the test needs to be routed through the Screener Scoring system. If there is no response to any item in these domains, then the test will appear as a non-attempt and be rejected from the system. To “End Domain Incomplete” for Speaking and Writing domains, students must be given an opportunity to respond to a non-practice item and a reasonable time to respond. Please consider if pausing the test and having the student finish at a later time may help. If the student is unable to engage in anyway, the TA will type or say the phrase “no response” as the response. If a Speaking or Writing test is ended incomplete from a not started status (no response is given to any non-practice item) a Screener report will not be able to generate. The student would need to be rescreened.
Additional information on this process is available from OSPI. Please email ELPAssessments@k12.wa.us if you would like to receive the document. Only those with permissions enabled in WIDA-AMS can use End Domain Incomplete. OSPI recommends that DACs grant this permission to a limited number of staff.
If a student is unable to use the technology effectively, a TA can operate the technology for the student on the Listening and Reading domains. The TA may click as directed by the student or in response to student gestures such as pointing. The TA may not support the student in any way with the content of the test, only the technology. For the speaking domain, the TA can operate the technology; however, there is only one opportunity for a student to record, so spending some time in the practice items, so the student knows how to use the microphone is often a better option. For the writing, if a student cannot respond through typing a response, the response can be handwritten on paper. Please see the WIDA Secure Portal training for more details on how to use paper for the response. The TA may not type a student’s dictated response directly into the test.
If a student is unable to test using computer and needs an accommodated paper test, please request a paper test by emailing ELPAssessments@k12.wa.us.
In Washington, all students are required to test on the screener designated for their current grade level. WIDA offers guidance that differs from Washington’s policy. In Washington only Kindergarten students test on the kindergarten test. Only grade 1 students test on the grade 1 test.
If a student has not been enrolled in a Washington State public school in the past 12 months and meets the identification criteria on the home language survey, the student must take the WIDA Screener to determine eligibility for ELD services. The exception to this rule is a student who enrolls in a Washington State public school with WIDA ACCESS scores. WIDA ACCESS (not WIDA Screener) scores from out-of-state can be used in lieu of screening under the following conditions:
- If a student met the current Washington State WIDA Exit Criteria at any point on the annual WIDA ACCESS, then the student is ineligible for ELD services.
- If a student has WIDA ACCESS scores from within the previous 12 months and did not meet the Washington State Exit Criteria, the student is eligible for services.
- If the student has not taken the WIDA ACCESS in the last 12 months and has not met the current exit criteria based on a previous ACCESS score, then the student must be screened using the WIDA Screener. Washington State does not accept WIDA Screener scores from out of state.
All WIDA scores must reflect the requirements for the grade level the student was enrolled in when the student completed the test. Regardless of how eligibility is determined, the student must be identified for services within 10 school days of attending a Washington public school. If out-of-state scores are not available within 10 days, the school will need to administer a WIDA screener assessment to determine eligibility.
If a student who previously transitioned (exited) from the TBIP program returns to Washington after having lived outside the United States in a non-English-speaking country for twelve or more months, the district can administer the WIDA Screener to determine if there has been a loss of English language proficiency. The student can re-qualify for TBIP services based on the new placement test results.
If students are transferring to your district from another Washington district, please check the student's record for previous ELD eligibility. If you need screener information for a student from another district, please use the WIDA District Contacts list to reach out to the student's previous district. If your district needs to update the contacts in this list, please contact Alysia.hartsell@k12.wa.us with the new contact information.
WIDA offers webinars to provide information and answer questions about different components of the WIDA assessment year. Over the next few weeks WIDA is offering the following screener-related webinars. All of these webinars are offered in the WIDA Secure Portal and recordings are available a few days after the live webinar. Attendees will be required to have a WIDA Secure Portal account to access the webinars.
WIDA Screener for Kindergarten July 25, 2022 11:00 am
WIDA Screener Online August 1, 2022 11:00 am
WIDA Screener Paper August 3, 2022 11:00 am
The staff at OSPI is here to help answer questions and provide guidance. Please don't hesitate to reach out to get the answers you need.
ELPAssessments@k12.wa.us - use this address for ordering Kindergarten screener materials (see process above), general questions about screening or training, requests to reset screener assessments.
DRC Customer Service wida@datarecognitioncorp.com - Contact DRC for technology concerns associated with WIDA AMS and the testing process.
WIDA Customer Support - Help@wida.us - Contact WIDA for support with the WIDA Secure Portal.
Leslie Huff (ELP Assessment Coordinator) leslie.huff@k12.wa.us. Contact Leslie for questions around ELP assessment policy or if you are not sure where to direct your questions.
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