New District Human Resource Role Available in Online Certification System

The Maine Department of Education is excited to announce the availability of a new district human resource role in the state’s online educator certification system. The new role in MEIS (Maine Educator Information System) can be requested for district human resource staff by the superintendent.

Superintendents will need to use this link to our MEIS-DSTHR access request form.

This new role will provide the user the ability to view the districts certification (violations) report as well as any district employees up for a credential. Prior to granting this role, the staff member will need to create an account for themselves (if they do not already have one) in MEIS.

Once a staff member has created an account and has been granted the district human resource role, instructions on navigating to the certification report will be sent to the user via email.

Contact the Maine DOE Helpdesk for additional help.

Ensuring Local Data Systems are Configured Properly For State Reporting #WhyDataMatters

Schools and districts use a wide range of different data systems to report required data to the Maine Department of Education (DOE), in addition to meeting their own diverse data needs. Because of this, data systems are highly configurable. It is very important for schools and districts to understand how their own systems are set up to ensure that their data is reported correctly to Maine DOE.

The Department has become aware of instances where a school’s data was unintentionally not reported correctly for a number of reasons and ends up surfacing significant issues in an unexpected way. It is important to understand that because local school units have their own data systems, configuration issues will need to be investigated and found at the local level.

Here is an example of a configuration issue, brought to the Department’s attention recently, that was found and fixed by a local school unit: Incorrect coding of dismissal (even within 5 minutes of the end of the day, for example) led to students being counted as absent. Customizing the local system, in this case Powerschool, fixed the issue and decreased the district’s ADA% absent.

Scheduling and attendance configuration issues affecting attendance reporting have also been discovered by districts using Infinite Campus.

The Department encourages School Administrative Units to work with local vendors to ensure that the settings and configurations of your local system are aligned correctly for state reporting.

For further questions about reporting, please contact the Maine DOE Helpdesk at medms.helpdesk@maine.gov.

Maine Education Assessments Released Items Now Available

The Maine Department of Education is excited to announce the availability of released items from Maine’s 2017/18 state assessment. As educators begin to explore the released items for MEA spring 2018, we want to clarify a few inconsistencies within English Language Arts(ELA)/Literacy and Mathematics and provide some information about released items moving forward.

ELA/Literacy:

In grade 3 eMPowerME reading, the passage students read while completing the assessment is not available for reference. Unfortunately, the assessment vendor, Measured Progress, was unable to obtain the necessary permissions to release the passage for public use. Fortunately, the passage used is a commonly known text, Corduroy, (Freeman, D. (1987). Corduroy. Harmondsworth: Puffin Books.). Educators should pay close attention to the information contained within the released item to guide use of the materials. Moving forward, the Maine DOE has taken steps to ensure that all passages utilized in any future released items will have the necessary permissions obtained for both confidential and public release.

Additionally, when the released items first became available on 11/12/18, there was a misalignment in the numbering of the ELA/Literacy released items in the Confidential MAARS portal versus the Released Item Documents found in the Measured Progress’ WordPress site. In the MAARS released item chart, the Essay item, indicated by “Item Type” WP (writing prompt), was originally reported as Released Item #01 in all grades, followed by Reading, then Writing & Language released items.

This is an example of the way ELA/Literacy Grade 3 released items chart first appeared in the confidential MAARS portal:

releasedItems1

In the Educator Support Materials for the eMPowerME Released Item Documents (pdf), the last 2 pages are Math and ELA/Literacy released item information charts. In the ELA/Literacy chart (Grade 3 example below), the Essay is presented last, and the numbers for Reading and Writing & Language correspond to the item numbers in the released item booklets, but not to the released item numbering in the MAARS chart above. releaseditems2

The placement of the Essay score (Writing Prompt/WP) has been corrected in MAARS Confidential to appear as the last item in ELA, as shown below in the sample snapshot for Grade 3:

releaseditems3

The new, correct placement of the WP/Essay score for each grade is as follows: Grade 3=#14, Grade 4=#17, Grade 5=#14, Grades 6, 7, and 8=#16.

Mathematics:

When the released items became available on 11/12/18, there was a constructed response (CR) item in math omitted from the MAARS confidential reports in every grade 3-8. eMPowerME math released items include multiple choice items (MC), multi-select items (MS), and one (1) constructed response item (CR) per grade level. The math CR items have now been added to MAARS Confidential and are slotted in the tables according to the placement of the CR in the released items. The Math CRs are scored in 2 parts: Concepts & Procedures Standard (CPS) and Mathematical Process Standard (MPS) as shown below in the sample snapshot for Grade 3:

releaseditems4

NOTE: ELA/Literacy & Mathematics – The best way to align the released item numbering from the charts in MAARS to the released item PDFs is to follow the Tables on the last 2 pages of each grade level’s pdf titled “2018 Mathematics Released Item Information” and “2018 English Language Arts Released Item Information”.

Future eMPowerME Released Items:

The Maine DOE is committed to providing as many resources as possible to support instructional practice. One such support is the availability of released items. Unfortunately, the frequency in which the Maine DOE is able to release items is currently limited to 2017/2018 and 2019/2020. We will be unable to release items from the 2018/2019 test administration. There are many factors that have impacted this decision and the Maine DOE is exploring how to increase the frequency of releasing items while not increasing the amount of testing time for students. It should be noted that although released items will not be provided from the 2018/19 test administration, educators will still have access to the released items from the 2017/18 test administration in addition to the already available sample items.

Further questions can be directed to Lee Anne Larsen, Acting Deputy Director, Office of Learning Systems at 624-6628 or Leeann.Larsen@maine.gov

Dropout Reporting Opens November 26, 2018

This is a reminder that Dropout reporting begins the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend. The report will be open from November 26, 2018 to December 14, 2018. This report is located in the “Graduation Data” module in NEO, along with the Graduation reports from the 2017/18 school year. The module is located here: https://neo.maine.gov/doe/neo/graduation

The reporting process will follow the same structure as graduation reporting. Individual reports must be completed for each school in the district that has grades anywhere from 7 to 12. Once all the reports are completed, the reports need to be submitted to the Maine DOE. Maine DOE staff will then review/approve each report and submit them back to the School Administrative Unit for certification. Certification must be done by the Superintendent. Once the ‘Certify’ button is pressed on the summary screen, this will complete the dropout reporting process. Detailed instructions for this process can be found here.

Since dropouts could not be calculated until after the October 1 enrollments have been completed, it was necessary to remove the dropout rate reporting out of the graduation rate reporting process.

Some things to note for this process:

Dropouts are:

Students who are part of the 2017/18 Cohort that were enrolled in the 2017/18 school year and were exited with a code indicating that the student was expected to return in the 2018/19 school year, but for whom there have been no enrollments in the 2018/19 school year so far.

Students in grades 7 through 12 who exited in 2017/18 with a code that correlates to being a dropout.

Future Dropouts are:

Students in grades 7 through 12 who are part of a Cohort after the 2017/18 Cohort that were exited in the 2017/18 school year with a code indicating that the student was expected to return in the 2018/19 school year, but for whom there have been no enrollments in the 2018/19 school year. If no enrollments appear in the 2018/19 school year for them, they will receive a dropout count during the 2019 dropout reporting period.

If you have questions regarding the process for dropout reporting, contact Trevor Burns 207-624-6678

What Is Academic Achievement? #success4ME

aa ela (blue) — Academic Achievement – English Language Arts (ELA)

Within Maine’s Model of School Support as part of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Maine uses data from Maine’s Education Assessments to define the academic achievement indicator as the number of students scoring at a performance level of 3 (meeting state expectations) or 4 (exceeding state expectations). ESSA requires that each state’s accountability system, in Maine we call it Maine’s Model of School Support, includes academic achievement as measured by performance on the annual state assessments.

Why academic achievement?

Academic Achievement - Mathematics — Academic Achievement – Mathematics

Maine’s strategic plan aims for students to graduate from high school workplace ready; academic achievement is a cornerstone of the Maine’s Model of School Support. Maine administers the Maine Educational Assessments (MEAs) annually to measure student performance in English Language Arts (ELA) and math.

What does this look like in Maine?

Using the cut-scores that have been established for each of the performance levels of the state assessment, students earn a performance level ranging from 1 to 4.

1 – Well Below State Expectation
2 – Below State Expectations
3 – Meets State Expectations
4 – Exceeds State Expectations

The state has established the ambitious goals for each school to improve academic achievement in ELA and math by 20% for each individual eligible student group using the 2016 assessment as the baseline year. This equates to a 1.4% increase in academic achievement for each student group, in each subject area, on an annual basis.

The school level descriptors for academic achievement are as follows:

Academic Achievement – English Language Arts (ELA)

Emerging	Developing	Meeting	Excelling
No eligible student group made their annual target	At least one eligible student group made their annual target	All eligible student groups made their annual target	All eligible student groups exceeded their annual target by at least 10%

Academic Achievement – Mathematics

Emerging	Developing	Meeting	Excelling
No eligible student group made their annual target	At least one eligible student group made their annual target	All eligible student groups made their annual target	All eligible student groups exceeded their annual target by at least 10%

Where eligible student groups (with an “n” size of 10) include: Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Two or More Races, White, Students with Disabilities, Economically Disadvantaged; migrant students, and English Learners.

Academic achievement will be presented on the school report card in the following way:

reportcard1aa

The following are examples of elements the user may select to view:

Performance of specific student populations
National Assessment of Educational Progress
English Leaner performance
Student performance on the Alternate Assessment

reportcard3aa

Further questions can be directed to Janette Kirk, Acting Director, Office of Learning Systems at Janette.Kirk@maine.gov.

What is Graduation Rate? #success4ME

The graduation rate indicator is one of four indicators used in Maine’s Model of School Support. It will be used as an indicator of success for high schools only. Graduation is defined as graduating within four years after entering ninth grade. In Maine, the graduation rate indicator reflects the number of students graduating “on-time”, as well as the graduating students who progressed at a different rate and graduated in either five or six years.

In the past, graduation rate was never utilized when making determinations of schools eligible to receive support. Under Maine’s Model of School Support, the graduation rate for students meeting graduation requirements in four years in addition to the graduation rate of students meeting graduation requirements in five or six years will be utilized.

graduation rate 4 yr (blue) — 4 Year Graduation Rate

What does this look like in Maine?

Achieving a diploma is a major accomplishment and marks a significant milestone in a student’s life. It is important to highlight the number of students achieving a diploma, whether it takes some students four years or longer to do so. As it relates to Maine’s Model of School Support, the Graduation Rate indicator is split into two rates of graduation:

5 and 6 Year Graduation Rate

The 4-year rate is the number of students who graduate in four years with a high school diploma, divided by the number of students who form the adjusted cohort for the graduating class.
The 5 and 6 year rates reflect the number of graduating students who took 5 and 6 years, respectively to graduate from high school.

How will graduation rate data be presented on the school report card?

The school as a whole will receive a performance measure related to individual student groups meeting the annual graduation target.

Graduation Performance Descriptors:

Graduation – 4 Year

Emerging	Developing	Meeting	Excelling
No eligible student group made their annual graduation target	At least one eligible student group made their annual graduation target	All eligible student groups made their annual graduation target	All eligible student groups have met or exceeded the long-term goal of 90%

Graduation – Combined 5/6 Year

Emerging	Developing	Meeting	Excelling
No eligible student group made their annual graduation target	At least one eligible student group made their annual graduation target	All eligible student groups made their annual graduation target	All eligible student groups have met or exceeded the long-term goal of 92%

Eligible student groups include: Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Two or More Races, White, Students with Disabilities, Economically Disadvantaged, Migrant Students, and English Learners.

Goals for four year adjusted cohort graduation rate:

Subgroup	Baseline (Data and Year)	Long-term Goal (Data and Year) 2030
All students	86.83% 2016	90% or maintain current 2016, whichever is greater, graduation percentages by 2030
Economically disadvantaged students	77.77% 2016
Children with disabilities	72.19% 2016
English learners	78.14% 2016
Race – Hispanic/Latino	83.46% 2016
Race – American Indian	84.91% 2016
Race – Asian	90.68 % 2016
Race – Black or African American	76.77% 2016
Race – Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander	88.24% 2016
Race – White	87.29% 2016

The measurements of progress are based on increases in the percentage of all students in Maine who make progress toward the long-term goals on a three-year basis. Long-term goals were developed to reduce the percentage of non-graduating students to result in student groups all meeting the goal of 90% by 2030. The calculation process, for example, is as follows:

Subgroup: All Students

Step 1: 2016 Graduation Rate = 86.83%
Step 2: 90% (goal) – 86.83% (baseline) = 3.17%
Step 3: Differential for each 3-year step is 3.17 divided by 5 = .61%
Step 4: Add to the baseline .61 % and add the .61% to each subsequent step to reach the goal of 90% by 2030.

Goals for extended- year cohort graduation rate

Subgroup	Baseline (Data and Year)	Long-term Goal (Data and Year) 2030
All students	88.61% 2016	92% or maintain current 2016, whichever is greater, graduation percentages by 2030
Economically disadvantaged students	80.82% 2016
Children with disabilities	77.27% 2016
English learners	86.12% 2016
Asian	94.27% 2016
American Indian	83.49% 2016
Black	83.47% 2016
Hispanic	84.13% 2016
Native Hawaiian	93.33% 2016
White	88.84% 2016
Multiple Races	86.62% 2016

Graduation rate will be presented on the initial page of the report card in the following way:

reportcard1

reportcard2

reportcard3

reportcard4

For further information please contact Janette Kirk, Acting Director, Office of Learning Systems at Janette.Kirk@maine.gov.

PRIORITY NOTICE: Delayed Public Release of Maine Education Assessment (MEA) Results

The public release of the Maine Education Assessment (MEA) data scheduled for today, November 5, 2018, has been delayed.

The validation process is taking longer than anticipated and extra time is needed to allow the Department to work with our vendor, Focal Point K-12, to ensure that the data is accurate prior to its release.

The Department is making a concerted effort to complete the validation process so that we can release the results as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through this unanticipated delay.

2018-2019 Maine School Immunization Report Due December 31, 2018

Maine law (20A M.R.S.A. 6358, Chapters 126 & 216) requires students enrolled in grades K-12 to be immunized against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, polio and varicella (chicken pox). Additionally, all students enrolled in grades 7-12 must be immunized against meningococcal meningitis. Under this law, students are required to have either vaccine administration records, a physician note or laboratory evidence to prove immunity, a physician note indicating the student is medically exempt, or a religious or philosophical objection note from a parent/guardian for each of the required vaccines listed above.

In accordance with this law, each year, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Maine Immunization Program, in conjunction with the Maine Department of Education, sends out the Maine School Age Immunization Assessment Survey to collect immunization information on all students enrolled in Maine public and private schools. The data from this survey is used to measure compliance with this law and also to assess the level of immunization coverage throughout the State of Maine. The survey can be completed online using Survey Monkey through the following web link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/school2018me

Who must report and what is reported:

All schools with students enrolled in these grades (K, 7^th, 12^th) MUST report. If you fail to report by the deadline the superintendent of your school will be notified.

- - Kindergarten – reporting on all required school age immunizations (DTaP, Polio, MMR, Varicella)
  - Seventh grade– Tdap and meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MCV4) ONLY – 1 dose of each is required
  - Twelfth grade – MCV4 ONLY – 1 or 2 doses required based on age the first dose was given

Missing immunizations will require follow up. All students must either have an immunization record or exemption on file for each required vaccine. Superintendents will be notified of any non-compliance.

To complete the survey, you will need the number of students enrolled (full or part-time) for grades K, 7^th, and 12^th. For each required vaccine, you will need the number of students vaccinated, the number of students with either medical, religious, or philosophical exemptions, and the number of students missing records (non-compliant). A pdf copy of the survey is available here:

Complete the survey online
The deadline for completing the survey is December 31, 2018, after which the survey will be closed. This is extended from the usual December 15 deadline.

For additional information or assistance, contact Jessica Shiminski from DHHS at 207-287-3746 or 1-800-867-4775 or email: jessica.shiminski@maine.gov.

Reminder: Annual Audit Requirements

Iinitial report to the Commissioner is due November 1st:

Pursuant to Title 20-A MRSA 6051 §4, statements of assurance and Maine Education Financial System reconciliations are due to the Department by November 1, 2018. Please submit via email to DOE.audit@maine.gov . Any adjustments identified by these reconciliations should be uploaded to the Maine Education Financial System in NEO by November 30, 2018.

Annual Audit Reports Due December 30th:

Annual audit reports are due within six months after the end of the audit period (e.g., reports for the fiscal year ending June 30^th are due on or before December 30^th).
- Per statute, it is the school board’s responsibility to submit the annual audit document unless it is included in the engagement letter that the audit firm will submit the audit to the Department on behalf of the school board.
Per statute, the auditor is required to review the audit with the school board.
- Municipal school units are required to submit either a combined annual audit or a school department audit and a municipal audit to the Department. The municipal annual report (a.k.a. town report) cannot be accepted in lieu of the complete municipal annual audit.

Per statute, Maine DOE must receive a SEFA (Schedule of Expenditure of Federal Awards), which includes federal award expenditures for all reporting entities, regardless if a Single Audit (formerly A-133 audit) is not required to be conducted. The SEFA provides information needed by Maine DOE to conduct sub-recipient monitoring as required by US DOE and is due at the time of the annual audit.
- In municipal school units where a combined audit is not conducted, Maine DOE is to receive two audits: an audit with a SEFA for the school department and a city/town including a SEFA.

If a management letter is prepared by the auditor, a copy must be submitted to MDOE with the annual audit as this letter provides MDOE with information needed to conduct sub-recipient monitoring as required by US DOE.
Please submit all annual audit documents, reports, information requests, questions and other audit correspondence via email to DOE.Audit@Maine.gov or via the direct link provided on the Fiscal Review and Compliance webpage.

Extensions and Subsidy Payments

It is the Superintendent’s responsibility to request audit deadline extensions and/or exceptions, regardless if the request is for the municipal audit and/or school department audit. The forms are available on the Fiscal Review and Compliance webpage.

Extensions will expire no less than 30 days from the date the extension was submitted.
Extension requests will be considered until June 30th (six months after due date); extensions will not be valid after June 30th and all municipalities and school administrative units with overdue audits that have not submitted an extension request before May 30^th will be place on the hold subsidy list and subsidy will be withheld in July.
Submitting the required documents will be the only way to be removed from the Hold Subsidy List.

For more information, review statutory requirements in Title 20-A MRSA 6051 §4 or email to DOE.Audit@Maine.gov.

PRIORITY NOTICE: EPS Oct 1 Enrollment/Special Ed (EF-S-05) Reporting Deadline Extended to November 5, 2018

The Maine Department of Education would like to inform all public schools, charter schools, and private schools that receive public funds, that the EPS Oct 1 Enrollment/Special Ed (EF-S-05) Report Certification deadline that was originally scheduled for October 31, 2018 has been extended to the end of day on Monday, November 5, 2018.

Ensure the data has been reviewed and is correct prior to certification. Please do not certify your data if it is not correct. Contact the DOE Data Helpdesk at 624-6896 or medms.helpdesk@maine.gov if you have questions about data issues that need to be resolved.

If you have made corrections or changes in your Student Information System and have uploaded those changes to Synergy; you must also request a “refresh” of the EPS Oct 1 Enrollment/Special Ed (EF-S-05) Report in NEO in order for those changes to be reflected in that report. This is not done automatically and requires the “Uncertify/Refresh Data” button to be pushed in the report in NEO.

If you’re not sure how to refresh the EPS Oct 1 Enrollment/Special Ed (EF-S-05) report, see the instructions entitled “Where is the Refresh Button” located on the Data Reporting Instructions webpage.

Further questions should be directed toward the DOE Data Helpdesk at 624-6896 or medms.helpdesk@maine.gov.