Continuous Improvement & Focused Monitoring
|
CIFMS Ad Hoc Task Force Meeting
December 5, 2006
Continuous Improvement and Focused Monitoring System (CIFMS)
Stakeholders Present:
Brian Anderson, Nissan Bar Lev, Barb Behlen, Cynthia Hirsch, JoAnne Huston, Pete Knotek, Sheri Krause, Carolyn Madsen, Don Rosin, Jan Serak, Mary Skadahl, Jeff Spitzer-Resnick, Bonnie Vander Meulen, Joan Wade, and Patricia Yahle
Special Education Technical Assistance Providers:
Thomas Delaney, Education Specialist, North Central Regional Resource Center (NCRRC)
Welcome
Stephanie Petska, Director of Special Education, welcomed the CIFMS Stakeholders and thanked them for participating in the video-conference call with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), in preparation for the OSEP data verification visit to Wisconsin. OSEP was impressed with the level of stakeholder involvement in Wisconsin.
Introduction
Anita Castro, Assistant Director of Special Education, reviewed the significance of the State Performance Plan (SPP).
- IDEA requires each state to have a SPP to evaluate efforts to implement the requirements and purposes of the Act and to submit an Annual Performance Report (APR) describing the progress made in meeting the targets in the SPP.
- Based on information in the APR, information obtains from monitoring visits, and other public information, OSEP determines whether a state has met the requirements, needs technical assistance, needs intervention, or needs substantial intervention.
- States are also required to make determinations annually on the performance of local educational agencies in meeting the targets in the SPP.
Indicators 9 & 10, Disproportionality - Donna Hart-Tervalon, DPI Assistant Director
- DPI held a three-day summer institute on disproportionality.
- The institute included presentations by local and national speakers on pre-referral and referral processes, general education interventions, and cultural competency.
- Technical assistance was provided to individual districts identified with disproportionality.
- Information on the summer institute is available on the DPI website at http://dpi.wi.gov/sped/spp-disp-si06.html.
- DPI worked with Dan Losen, NCREST and NCSEAM when establishing criteria for determining significant disproportionality.
- Criteria includes: a risk ratio of 2.0 or greater; a minimum of 1% racial disparity in risk; a cell size of a total enrollment of 100 students for any given racial group and 10 members in a given cell used for risk ratio analysis; and other criteria may be applied depending on unique circumstances. Three years of data are considered.
- 25 districts were identified with significant disproportionality and must submit improvement plans and reserve up to 15% of flow-through funds to target efforts. LEAs are strongly encouraged to include stakeholders in the development of their improvement plans.
- DPI will award mini-grants to applicants in December.
- DPI plans to offer regional training opportunities for districts interested in learning more about disproportionality.
Stakeholder Comments
- Stakeholders commented on the benefits of attending the summer institute and encouraged other stakeholders to attend to learn more about disproportionality.
- Stakeholders asked about the impact of transfer students on districts identified with significant disproportionality. Districts must review the IEPs of transfer students to determine whether a student is a student with a disability; a high number of transfer students does not relieve a district from consideration of significant disproportionality.
- Stakeholders would be interested in learning about the uses of Early Intervening Services (EIS) funds to target disproportionality.
Indicator 4B, Suspension and Expulsion by Race and Ethnicity - Tom Delaney and Nancy Fuhrman, DPI Special Education Data Coordinator
- In preparation for setting targets, Wisconsin participated in a regional conference call with other states and learned that many states are using a risk-ratio to identify districts with significant discrepancy in the rates of suspensions and expulsions of children with disabilities for greater than 10 days.
- Since this indicator deals with race and ethnicity, it is most effective to analyze this indicator in conjunction with Indicators 9 & 10.
- Criteria for Indicator 4B:
- A risk-ratio of 2.0 or greater.
- A cell size of at least four students with disabilities suspended or expelled for more than 10 days.
- Baseline data from the 2004-05 school year:
- 4.34% of districts identified as having a significant discrepancy.
Stakeholder Discussion
- Although the state could meet the target of reducing by one district per year, a large district could still have a problem in this area.
- DPI needs to provide clarity on reporting suspensions/definition of suspension.
- High numbers of suspensions is a poor educational strategy.
Stakeholder Decision
- Annual target:
- Reduce the number of districts by one district per year.
- Target for 2005-06 school year:
- Goal for 2010-11 school year:
Indicator 4A, Rates of Suspension and Expulsion - Tom Delaney and Nancy Fuhrman
- Stakeholders previously established 1.75 standard deviations above the mean for the purpose of setting the target.
- This defined significant discrepancy in the rates of suspensions and expulsions of children with disabilities for greater than 10 days in a school year as 2.93% or higher.
- Using child count data as the data source, 30 districts were identified.
- In keeping with Indicators 9 & 10, DPI established a minimal cell size of four students suspended/expelled for more than 10 days. This resulted in 16 districts identified with significant discrepancy.
- Beginning with the 2005-06 school year, ISES will be the data source in order to foster consistency with other DPI data collection efforts.
- To check reliability, the 2004-05 data was re-analyzed using ISES as the data source and yielded a comparable total number of districts identified as having a significant discrepancy.
Stakeholder Discussion
- This is not a comparison of removals for more than 10 days of students with disabilities compared to nondisabled students. This data is not collected for nondisabled.
- WINSS allows a comparison of all suspensions and expulsions between students with disabilities and nondisabled students.
- Directors of special education are beginning to see the positive impact of the indicators. The next question is what districts can do to improve results.
- Districts need more information about options to suspension.
- What is the relationship between suspension/expulsion and truancy?
- DPI analyzes other data points, including suspensions, expulsions, truancy, and promising/practices when districts are identified for focused monitoring.
Stakeholder Decision: Maintain the standard for identifying significant discrepancy in districts at 2.93% and the goal of reducing the number of districts identified with significant discrepancy by one school district each year. Targets will be reset accordingly using ISES data (Handout) .
Union High Schools (UHS)
- Stakeholders considered using an alternate standard for identifying significant discrepancy among union high schools. Union high schools have unique circumstances because the district is composed of a single school - a high school. Union high schools have a larger population of students in the age range when students are more typically removed (suspended/expelled). This can lead to a higher percentage of suspension/expulsions than a K-12 district.
- The stakeholders determined to keep the standard deviation consistent at 1.75% for union high schools. This means if a union high school's rate of suspension or expulsion of students with disabilities for 10 days or more (disciplinary removals) is 6.96% or greater, the district would be found to have a significant discrepancy in the rate of disciplinary removals of students with disabilities.
- Stakeholders suggested DPI consider analyzing K-8 districts as a separate category for identification purposes, as well.
Stakeholder Decision: For union high school districts, significant discrepancy is defined as a rate of disciplinary removals of students with disabilities at 6.96% or greater. The targets for union high schools will be set accordingly using ISES data.
Indicators 1 & 2, Graduation and Dropout - Judy O'Kane, DPI Consultant
- DPI improvement activities:
- Focused monitoring
- REACh initiative
- WSTI - comprehensive approach to providing transition services
- WSPEI - integral part of FM visits
- Behavior Grant - provide staff with skills and tools to keep students in school; new program guide to support districts http://dpi.wi.gov/sped/doc/ebdeffprog.doc
- Local Performance Plan - Although DPI focuses resources on a small number of districts during focused monitoring, all districts are held accountable to meet the SPP targets and will be required to submit improvement strategies as part of the Local Performance Plan if they do not meet the targets.
- Targets in SPP were set using 2002-03 data.
- Started with 2013-14 NCLB goal, and set equal-step targets to reach goal.
- 2004-05 graduation data is now available and must be used as the baseline data. 2004-05 graduation rate is lower due to a change in the calculation and the data collection source (from SPR to ISES).
- NCLB targets were set using a three-year plateau-step approach to allow time for improvement activities to have an impact.
- DPI analyzes three years of data to select districts for focused monitoring.
Handouts:
Options considered by stakeholders for setting new targets:
- Trend line using new baseline data, but maintaining 2010-11 (93%) goal.
- Trend line using new baseline data as starting point and working toward 2013-14 goal.
- Two-year plateau.
- Three-year plateau.
Stakeholder Discussion
- If a three-year plateau-step approach was selected, the 2010-11 SPP goal would be lowered, and it would be more difficult to achieve the 2013-14 NCLB goal in the remaining three years. In addition, every third year, there would be a significant increase and could potentially set the stage for failure. However, research supports three years as a reasonable amount of time for improvement.
- Two-year plateau-step would encourage more rapid improvement, but would allow time for improvement strategies to have an impact. Districts won't wait to begin working on improving outcomes, but results won't be seen until time allows.
- It typically takes more than one year for a student who is credit-deficient to earn their credits; two years is more likely to impact results/obtain needed credits.
- A plateau-step approach gives DPI the opportunity to identify resources needed to impact results.
- It is challenging to achieve systemic change, even given three years.
Stakeholder Decision
Indicator 1: Stakeholders reached consensus on two-year plateau-step, starting with new baseline data and working toward 2013-14 NCLB goal of 98%.
Indicator 2: Stakeholders applied the same rationale for Indicator 2 and chose the two-year plateau-step option for setting targets.
Indicator 3 Update, Participation and Performance on Statewide Assessments - Jeremiah Holiday, DPI Consultant
- A school district's ability to address the reading instructional needs of students with disabilities is affected by capacity and access (Handout).
- Three districts received monitoring visits focused on reducing the reading achievement gap between students with disabilities and their nondisabled peers.
- Focused monitoring examines the root causes of the gap.
- Following the onsite, a DPI liaison is assigned to each district to monitor progress and provide technical assistance.
- The REACH initiative is accessed by FM districts to improve outcomes for all students (http://dpi.wi.gov/reach/index.html).
- Other activities included:
- Four regional training opportunities on the Wisconsin Alternate Assessment (WAA).
- Collaboration with the Office of Educational Accountability (OEA) on a testing accommodations matrix and on a presentation at the Inclusion Conference.
Summary of the 2005-06 data (Handout )
- Progress was made in the percent of districts meeting AYP objectives in reading and math for students with disabilities.
- Participation rates also exceed the projected targets.
- There was slippage in the proficiency rates in 8th and 10th grade reading and 10th grade math for students with disabilities. There was also a decrease in proficiency rates for all students.
Stakeholder Discussion
- The stakeholders were concerned about the slippage in reading and math scores and recommended further analysis of our focused monitoring process, as well as further discussion on how to improvement outcomes.
Indicators 5 & 6 Update, Environment - Nancy Fuhrman, DPI Special Education Data Coordinator
- Progress was made on Indicator 5; there was slight slippage on Indicator 6 (Handout).
- Data verification process piloted in 2 districts; will visit 6 districts this year.
- Environment code training is posted on the DPI website and will be updated this year.
- Focus is on accurate reporting of data.
Stakeholder Discussion
- Stakeholders recommended analyzing the relationship between environment and student outcomes.
- Environment codes do not measure services received.
- Districts may need to consider more individualized and intense instruction in order to impact reading and math results.
Indicator 20, Accurate and Timely Data - Nancy Fuhrman
- DPI expressed concern in the State Performance Plan about the accuracy of the state's environment data.
- DPI has conducted training and data verification visits.
- Due to a new data collection system, the correct baseline year (2004-05) was not available when the State Performance Plan was filed on December 1, 2005.
- The Special Education Team is working collaboratively with the Office of Educational Accountability and Information Technology to improve the timeliness of the data.
Indicator 16, Complaints Resolved within 60-days - Jack Marker, DPI Consultant
- In 2000, DPI revised the formal complaint decision format to a letter format to expedite a resolution for students and improve DPI timelines.
- Since 1999, DPI has completed 70-80% of the complaint decisions within the 60-day timeline.
- The 2004-05 baseline was 84%.
- In 2005-06, 89% of complaint decisions were determined within the timeline.
- Reasons why some complaint decisions are late: change in federal and state law has impacted the workload capacity of complaint investigators; materials not received from districts in a timely manner.
- Letter to district specifies time by which district must submit materials to DPI. Unresponsive districts have been notified near the end of the time period, on a case by case basis, that the complaint will be considered substantiated if the district does not provide the requested materials.
Indicator 17, Due Process Hearings - Jack Marker, DPI Consultant
- 100% are completed within 45-day timeline.
- Hearing officers have an effective tracking system.
- Extensions are allowed (if requested by one of the parties).
- Hearing requests are down (about half).
Stakeholder Discussion
- Mediation and facilitate IEPs have positively impacted these results. Parent centers stress these strategies.
- Small percentage of parents request due process hearings because they involve costs.
Indicator 19, Mediation - Patricia Williams, DPI Consultant
- Met the 2005-06 target.
- Fewer number of mediations have been requested.
Special Education in Plain Language - Nissan Bar Lev
- The document has been revised.
- WI FACETS, CASS, and DPI collaborated on the revisions.
- Currently being reviewed by DPI legal counsel.
- Will be sent to stakeholders to review for inaccuracies.
- Target completion date - January 2007.
Next scheduled meetings
- May 15, 2007 - Review focused monitoring process.
- July 10-11, 2007 - Stakeholder discussion on improving outcomes.
- December 11-12, 2007 - Review of State Performance Plan/Set remaining targets.
For questions about this information, contact Anita J. Castro (608) 266-1781
Last updated on 2/22/2008 1:21:55 PM
|
Home
Contact Us
