It Takes a Village: Sharing Responsibility in the Testing Process

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It Takes a Village Sharing Responsibility in
the Testing Process

• Presented by
• Brenda Booth, Director of Assessment
• Gina Gonzalez, Director of English Language
  Acquisition
• El Paso Independent School District
• El Paso, Texas

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Session Focus

• Tips for working with other central office
  departments to ensure everyone is on the same
  page when it comes to appropriate assessment.
• Help you avoid the misinformation that floats
  around when too many departments work with
  information in isolation.
• The cooperation between the Assessment and
  English Language Acquisition departments in the
  LPAC process and assessment of LEP students.

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Does Central Office Seem Like a Bureaucracy

• A system of administration marked by
• officialism
• red tape
• Formal division of responsibility
• Hierarchy
• Impersonal relationships
• Unresponsive
• Italian burocrazia

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Your district

• Are these the qualities that characterize central
  office in your district?
• Is that the perception that others that work
  outside of central office have of your district?
• Litmus test Are people shocked and surprised
  when you return phone calls?

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About El Paso ISD

• More than 64,000 students
• 92 campuses
• Largest district in the Region 19 area
• 7th largest school district in Texas
• 57th largest district in the United States

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More info - EPISD

• Largest employer in El Paso (other than the
  military) with more than 9,000 employees
• LEP population 29 (approx. 18,000 students)

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Challenges

• Working in isolation
• Things changing so quickly it is difficult to
  keep up with our own area of expertise, let alone
  the knowledge-base in another area

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• Subtle nuances specific to your area of expertise
  can be a challenge for others
• Language
• Vocabulary
• Acronyms
• Can cause miscommunication and misunderstandings
  when that information is disseminated from
  somewhere other than your department

LAT
NCLB
LPAC
AMAO
TELPAS
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• Used to being Jack of All Trades
• Just cant do it all anymore
• Sharing information that is specific to your
  department is fine to help others understand
• Communication of that information really needs to
  come from your department only

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• Dont be afraid to say I dont know in response
  to questions
• it is more important to check the facts and
  impart accurate information
• easier than trying to clean up the mess that
  results from passing along misinformation
• We are not Wal-Mart -- we are not a one-stop
  shop cant claim to have all the answers need
  to answer the ones that pertain to us and send
  them to the other dept. for answers on the other
  issues.

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Critical to Accountability

• When two departments work
  together it is easier to ensure that accurate
  information is being disseminated
• Need to stay in touch constantly to hold campuses
  other personnel accountable
• Cant play one parent against the other trying
  to get the answer they want
• Keep each other in the loop so everyone plays by
  the rules and no one tries to get around the
  system

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Divide Conquer

• Each department becomes accountable for the part
  of the system for which they are most
  responsible
• DELA will have to answer questions about LPAC
  paperwork if an audit comes
• Testing will have to answer questions about
  testing irregularities, security procedures
• Shouldnt answer questions that may lead to
  problems for the other department because they
  are the ones responsible for certain information

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Teamwork United Front

• Advantages of working as a team
• better at solving problems
• include more people who can help implement an
  idea or plan
• tasks that seem difficult become more manageable
  by dividing the work
• Easier for a team to generate energy and interest
  in new projects than an individual

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• There is no I in team,
• but you are in success

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Collaboration

• A process to reach goals that cannot be achieved
  acting singly (or not reached efficiently)
• A means to an end, not an end in itself
• The desired end is more comprehensive and
  appropriate services
• Charles Bruner

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Characteristics of Collaboration

• Voluntary
• You choose to participate
• Based on parity
• You must believe that all individuals
  contributions are valued equally 

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• A shared goal
• Helps promote buy in and responsibility for the
  end result
• Shared responsibility for key decisions
• Share decision making and divide work for
  collaborative activities

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• Includes shared accountability for outcomes
• You are going to share key decisions, so you must
  also share accountability for the results of the
  decisions
•  Based on shared resources
• Everyone involved needs to make an effort to
  contribute some type of resource

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Remember

• Change begins with individuals, not institutions
• Department staff need to have time to meet and
  interact with one another so that trust and
  respect on an individual level can be generated
• Personal interactions across agencies nurture
  trusting relationships that will sustain the
  growing pains naturally associated with systemic
  change

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It Takes a Village . . .

• to support
• Testing

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LEP Students and Assessment
NCLB
AMAO
AYP
LAT
TAKS
AEIS
LPAC
Title III
Accommo- dations
Test Security
TELPAS
Rater Training
Score Codes
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How to divide who gets what?

• NCLB
• AMAO
• Title III
• Curriculum
• English language proficiency
• LPAC
• Proficiency level descriptors
• Rater Qualification training
• LPAC paperwork
• Exiting criteria

• TELPAS
• LAT
• Linguistic accommodations
• Assessment
• Accountability
• AYP
• AEIS
• Rater website info
• Testing procedures
• Test Coordinator Training
• Score codes
• Answer documents

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NCLB
TELPAS
LAT
AMAO
Accommodations
Title III
LPAC Training
Assessment
Curriculum
AMAO Training
Refresher courses
LPAC
Rater reports
Performance targets definitions
English language proficiency
Testing procedures
Test Coordinator training
Assembling writing collections
Rater Training
Data Analysis
Score codes
Documentation paperwork
Accountability
Answer documents
AEIS
Exiting criteria
AYP
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LPAC Training

• Jointly conducted by the Department of English
  Language Acquisition (DELA) and the Testing
  Center
• During training emphasis in placed on which
  department is appropriate to contact for which
  types of questions

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DELA Topics

• NCLB requirements
• LPAC paperwork required documentation
• Determining which students are exempt
• Determining if the students at Grades 3-6 should
  test in English or Spanish
• Progress monitoring
• Instructional intervention

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Testing Center Topics

• TELPAS
• LAT testing and accommodations
• Exit Level LEP postponement
• Appropriate score codes and information for
  answer documents
• Learn Center website for qualifying and refresher
  courses

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Choose Your Relationship

• Adversarial Relationship
• We educators have drawn our wagons into a circle
  and trained our gunson each other.
  Boston Principal
• OR . . .

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• 2. Collegial relationship
• Collegiality is about getting people to play
  together schools are full of good players
• Getting good players is easy. Getting 'em to
  play together is the hard part. Casey
  Stengel

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Evidence of Playing Together

• Talking with one another
• Sharing knowledge
• Observing one another
• Rooting for one another's success

What would this look like if practiced by
departments in central office??
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Talking To One Another

• Keep each other apprised of what is going on in
  your department/division
• Copy relevant staff members/departments to email
  communication
• Send a courtesy email or make a phone call to the
  other department staff informing them of a
  conversation/issue that youve dealt with that
  might also come to their department
• Co-sign memos that go to campuses
• Everyone stays in the loop and it adds more
  credibility to the message

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Observing One Another

• Attend relevant meetings or training sessions
  given by the other department(s)
• Since our areas overlap questions may come up
  that deal with our dept., so we are able to
  answer those directly
• Also, we gain more knowledge about the bigger
  picture in regard to how our programs fit
  together

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Sharing Knowledge

• Offer to present information from your background
  that supports another program
• Attend TETNs that deal with the other departments
  area of expertise
• If you are in a meeting and questions arise that
  pertain to another dept. that isnt in
  attendance, recommend they be called in to
  participate

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Rooting for Success

• Always share information about the other
  department(s) in a positive manner
• Show support of that department(s) by deferring
  to their expertise on issues that are in their
  domain

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Lessons Learned

• Professionally, our work has been enhanced
• Each of us brings different strengths to the
  process
• One of us is more of a data head and detail
  person, while the other deals more with processes
  and instruction
• A trust relationship has grown between us, so we
  have been able to learn from/build on each
  others strengths

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Soar with your Strengths
Do what you do best!!!
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Introductions . . .

• Other principal players
• - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
• Questions??