Frequently Asked Special Education Questions about State Assessments   For more information on assessments: Math Reading Writing Science History/Government   1.  Do we test home-schooled or partially-enrolled students?   The district need not test students who meet the following conditions: the district did not make the placement decision. the student is home school or private school enrolled. the student is not receiving instruction in the tested content area as part of the district supplied services. All other students must be tested. 2.  When will the accommodations manual be available to the field?               The draft is waiting final edits and should be out in Dec. 3.  How much of an assessment must be completed for it to be counted as "incomplete" rather than "non-participating?"   We will need to determine this for each form of the assessment after the first administration.  The technical application is the Spearman Brown formula, and we are targeting a .7 reliability coefficient.  Because of this a different percent complete will be calculated for each test.   In any case, an assessment is either complete or incomplete.  If it is incomplete, it counts as non-participating.  If it is complete, the score counts as part of the school’s AYP report.   Contact Cheri Randall if you believe a student’s test is incomplete. 4.  When will practice tests be available?   The Test Builder is available now on the Kan-ed web site http://www.kan-ed.org/ .  Additional options are under development and should be available by January 2008 through CETE.  5.  We don't know what to tell teachers they should be instructing for students taking the KAMM.  For example, if less suffixes will be tested than on the grade-level indicator, teachers don't know which ones will be tested.  When will this instructional information be available?   At the present time, the complexity of the test item is the basis for the KAMM.  We don't anticipate that much if anything will change with the actual indicators. Therefore, teachers should teach what the grade level indicator states.   6.  It is very difficult to find 5 math and 5 reading indicators for some of our very medically fragile children that receive limited homebound services.    Please remember that some of the very low indicators can still be found in the extended standards, or that the student might meet the definition of being severely incapacitated.   Students Severely Incapacitated for Medical Reasons If a student is severely incapacitated for medical reasons and the school can document that fact, thestudent’s nonparticipation in the assessment does not count against the school.   The school should call Dr. Cheryl Randall regarding a special code for students with extreme medical conditions.    7.  Will there be a paper-pencil KAMM?  A pencil and paper copy of the KAMM will be available only as an accommodation.  When registering the student for the KAMM with CETE, request a P&P copy of the test.  A scribe will be needed to transfer answers to the online assessment.   8.  Is there any KSDE guidance on how human readers should be used? 1-1, small group?   The guidance on the use of a human reader can be found in the draft of the accommodations manual.  One of the main factors is that if the reading passages are read, the test is considered invalid.  A human reading is allowed on the math assessment (all parts) and the reading assessment test items and distractors only.  The use of a human reader must be listed as an accommodation in the student's IEP.  It should state if this is a 1 to 1 or small group situation.  In the past we have had teachers ask for special permission to use this in a small group.  We are trying to avoid people doing this in a group because they "think the student will do better."   9.  If an IEP is written in February then the student will only have a month to work on the indicators selected.  Will this be taken into account?    The indicators for alternate assessment need to be selected at the time that the IEP team determines that the student will take the alternate assessment.  This has been the guidance for the past several years.  We will try to incorporate it into future trainings.   Districts need to plan ahead for state assessments so that a Feb 06 IEP (13 months ahead) will actually identify the assessment indicators for the March 08 assessment and the Feb 07 IEP will identify the indicators for the March 09 assessment.   10.  How long do districts need to keep folio information and where should it be kept?    This has not been determined by CETE.  They (CETE) will need to randomly pull data folios for various studies.  We will have to get this information from them and then out to the field.   11.  May districts use checklists for recording data as their evidence for a student's performance in the folio?   The data in the data folio must show support and performance.  These are the two scoring rubric that will be used to score the data folio.