ESSA and School Report Card Information - Reports Go Live This Week

For those of you who are working on your school report card data (verifying and making sense of all of the data in the system), here are a few helpful hints:

1.  Check your data in the Illinois Interactive Report Card (either with your principals or with your superintendent) to make sure that it is accurate. If there are inaccuracies, please be sure to bring it to the attention of people at ISBE - reportcard@isbe.net

2.  Regardless of your school designations, make sure that positive information is being put out there about students with disabilities. I learned of one cooperative last week that had set up individual meetings with their districts to discuss the positive data points they had in their system (iLearn, goal monitoring, behavioral data, etc.) that could be pumped out to the community to combat negative headlines.

3.  Utilize the resources available to you as much as possible. Those start with the information put out by the State Board of Education:

• The 5 Ws of Assessment
• Understanding ISBE's Goals
• Timeline for Release of Report Cards
• Ten Indicators to Measure Student Success
• What do the Four Designations Mean
• On the Road to Assessment & Accountability
• Illinois Quality Framework
• Illinois School-led System of Support
• Understanding Student Growth

However, the resources don't end there. We encourage you to reach out to your colleagues in the field as everyone is doing this work. We're definitely in this together.

4.  With that in mind, don't forget to register for our November Webinar. It's completely focused on ESSA and the Illinois Plan and everything you need to know about it in the first two years. Sara Boucek (IASA General Counsel) and Melissa Taylor (Former President of IAASE) will help us all through. Click here to get registered for this great event!

ISBE Announces Delay "Option" in Implementing Changes to IDEA Grants

This morning, ISBE announced that after careful consideration, they will allow cooperatives the option of submitting a request for a 6-month extension to meeting these new procedural guidelines.  If granted, the timeline would be extended until December 31, 2019. 

ISBE's preference remains that all cooperatives are compliant with the new procedures by June 30, 2019. However, for those cooperatives who do not feel this is possible, the extension will allow for a delayed implementation.  The specific guidelines and process that will need to be followed to request the extension are still under development.

Focused Monitoring

As some of you know, ISBE has been asked to pick up the pace on its Focused Monitoring efforts.  My understanding is that they will not be monitoring districts around indicator 5 (LRE), but there could be some combination of indicators that look at issues related to equity and over identification even though the disproportionality regulations at the federal level were delayed.

ISBE Staffing Update

ISBE has interviewed several candidates for the position of Director of Special Education, but nothing has come through as of yet.  Given that, Dave Andel has agreed to come back to the agency on a part time basis beginning on November 1, 2018.  Dave was a good friend to our organization and he will be welcomed at ISBE in Springfield.