Due to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, Maine has been refining a new accountability model moving towards a more purposeful and meaningful approach to supporting Maine’s schools experiencing challenges. A component of the high school accountability model is graduation. In order to reduce the burden on school districts and refine graduation reporting to align with the accountability model data requirements, the Department is instituting the following changes.
May 2018 – Validation of the first three years of the student’s enrollments for those students that are part of the 2017/18 cohort. Additional guidance is available for reporting.
June 30, 2018 – Validating all enrollments for the 2017/18 school year pre-K through 12.
All students will need to be exited with the appropriate exit code before June 30, 2018. There will be an end-of-year certification process. Details will be discussed in the May webinar trainings. A description of the appropriate exit code and their descriptions can be found here: http://maine.gov/doe/data/student/Synergy_upload.html
Districts will report in Synergy State Edition the exit status for each student as of June 30, 2018. We understand that often times plans change over the summer for students however it is important that the exit status for every student is recorded with the latest information you have at the time.
August 15, 2018 Reporting Deadline for high school graduation
District will report in the NEO Graduation module the final graduation status of students who may have taken credit recovery classes over the summer in order to graduate within the 4-year cohort and were not included in the June 30, 2018 reporting. Only the summer graduate data will be able to be modified at this time and students will need to have successfully completed their summer recovery classes in order to be considered an on time graduate.
Next steps
- Beginning early May, schools will be asked to validate the enrollments of students who are part of the 2017/18 cohort.
- At the end of the 2017/18 school year, schools will be asked to end all Synergy State Edition enrollments for every student in all grades with their appropriate end status, prior to July 1.
- Beginning in early to mid-August, the NEO Graduation module will be open for the purpose of updating only summer graduates. All other enrollment validations were covered in steps one and two above.
- The dropout validation is being separated from the graduation validation. Dropouts will be validated in the September/October time period as usual.
Questions regarding new graduation process should be directed to: Travis Wood 207-624-6742
Questions regarding access to Synergy State Edition or NEO should be directed to: DOE Helpdesk at 207-624-6896.