Indiana Administrators’ ESSA-Aligned Guide to Planning for the New School Year
Indiana Administrators’ ESSA-Aligned Guide to Planning for the New School Year
School may be out for the summer, but district and school administrators are hard at work planning for the upcoming school year. To support you in this process (and save you a little time to enjoy the sunshine!), we've assembled a curated list of our best resources aligned to goals outlined in the Indiana ESSA plan.
To kick things off, let’s review the specific indicators used for school and district accountability in the state of Indiana. The elements included and the weighting that has been assigned can both help confirm and guide your program focus.
Goal: Boost Indiana Academic Standards Mastery and ILEARN and ISTEP+ Grade 10 Achievement
The 2018–19 school year marked the first administration of the new adaptive ILEARN assessments, and while the standards being assessed did not change, students did enter into a very different kind of testing experience. Utilize the following guides to take a fresh approach to your instructional programs or refine your current practices to give students the best chance at success.
Frequent, standards-based formative assessments are a critical piece of effective data-driven instruction. Our formative assessment workbook provides a framework for implementing formative assessments throughout the lesson cycle, identifying student skill gaps early, and determining effective interventions. Its planning forms and data-tracking worksheets can be used across multiple subjects and grade levels. You can also learn more about four Indiana educators who are using Edmentum’s formative assessment program, Study Island, to prepare for ILEARN testing in this blog post.
A strong foundation in literacy is key to future academic success in any subject, and Indiana continues to ensure that students are reading by grade 3 through the iREAD-3. This workbook evaluates the many facets of structuring an effective, research-based reading and language arts block and helps you select the appropriate technology tools to support your approach.
Online Curriculum for Intervention, Acceleration, and Differentiation
Online curriculum can open up a world of college- and career-focused courses to students that their schools may not otherwise be able to offer, including Advanced Placement®, CTE, SAT®, ACT®, and WorkKeys® assessment preparation. Our online curriculum guide discusses several different ways that online curriculum can be used, and it even includes a worksheet to guide the process of identifying a provider that meets your needs.
A virtual implementation may help your school or district offer more flexible and expansive course options to serve populations in need. Use this workbook to evaluate if a virtual implementation is the best option for your school and get guidance on developing a program and selecting a digital provider.
Goal: Promote Academic Progress
Academic progress ensures that students are meeting growth targets year over year, and it uses annual state assessment scores as measurement. Now that initial ILEARN scores have been tabulated, year-over-year growth will once again be possible to quantify. Ensure that you’re meeting every student where he or she is academically to set and persist toward meaningful learning gains with these guides.
Personalized Learning Workbook
Personalized learning allows educators to meet the varying needs of all learners, improving learning outcomes. This workbook takes the guesswork out of personalized learning by providing a step-by-step plan from development to implementation.
Bring the best parts of online learning and traditional instruction together in a blended learning program. Blended learning programs come in many forms and enable scalable personalized learning. Use this workbook to get your district’s or school's blended learning program started.
Goal: Drive English Language Proficiency
Over 50,000 Indiana students have been formally identified as English learners (EL) due to limited proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing academic English. Spanish speakers represent 71.2% of the language minority student population in Indiana. Indiana’s goal is for 63% of ELs to attain English language proficiency within six years of initial identification. Make sure that you have all the right tools in place to serve this special population of students.
English Learner Blog Collection
This collection of blog posts addresses topics like back-to-school strategies to support English learners, ways to prepare English learners for high-stakes assessments, and more.
Special Populations Program Planning Worksheet
Use this worksheet to plan programs that address the needs of special populations of students.
Goal: Improve Graduation Rates
Indiana has raised the bar for graduation expectations by setting a long-term goal of closing its four-year cohort graduation gap for all student groups by 50% by the 2022 cohort. The 2018 cohort had an 87.1% graduation rate; the 2022 cohort has an established goal of reaching a 93.6% graduation rate. Make sure that your school has a credit recovery program in place so that all students who fall behind can catch up and graduate on time.
Our credit recovery worksheet will show you how to set up a new program or enhance your current credit recovery offering.
CTE programs have been shown to increase engagement and improve outcomes for enrolled students. Use our CTE workbook to plan a new program, or utilize it as a guide to augment your current one.
Achieving Graduation Success in Indiana
Indiana students need to meet diploma requirements and also, in most cases, satisfy additional criteria to graduate. Is your district or school equipped with the tools to offer students these different options?
Goal: Reduce Chronic Absenteeism
The impact of students being chronically absent is staggering. As a result, Indiana is focused on metrics that define a model attendee—either persistent attendance or improved attendance. Check out the following resources for more helpful information and suggestions for improving student attendance.
How Chronic Absenteeism Affects Student Achievement
This blog post looks at the impacts of chronic absence and includes information on initiatives that aim to move the needle on this growing problem.
The Consequences of Suspension and What Schools Can Do Instead
When it comes to chronic absenteeism, suspension is a big offender in hiking up that rate. As you consider how to keep students in the classroom, taking a hard look at suspension policies is an important step.
5 Alternatives to In-School Suspension
We know that suspension practices often negatively affect absenteeism metrics. Because research confirms that time in the classroom equates to success, you may want to reconsider your current practices.
Looking for online programs to help your school or district improve outcomes for all students? Check out Edmentum's suite of K–12 evidence-based assessments and digital curriculum, and see why over 8,000 districts in the nation partner with us.
