November 2003

Click her for Word or PDF File

TO:	Superintendents of Public Schools
FROM:	Rebecca Cort
	Interim Deputy Commissioner for Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities
	James A. Kadamus
	Deputy Commissioner for Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education
SUBJECT:	Identification of Students Eligible for the 2003–04 NYSAA

State and federal laws require that all students at specified grade levels, including students with severe disabilities, participate in State assessments. To comply with these laws, New York State provides the New York State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA) for students with severe disabilities, as defined in Commissioner’s Regulations, Part 100.2. The Committee on Special Education (CSE) determines whether or not a student is eligible to take the NYSAA based on the following criteria:

1. The student must have a severe cognitive disability, significant deficits in communication/language, or significant deficits in adaptive behavior; and
2. The student must require a highly specialized educational program that facilitates the acquisition, application, and transfer of skills across natural environments (home, school, community, and/or workplace); and
3. The student must require educational support systems, such as assistive technology, personal care services, health/medical services, or behavioral intervention.

These criteria are outlined in the March 2001 memo from Lawrence C. Gloeckler entitled The State Alternate Assessment for Students with Severe Disabilities, which is available on the Web at http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/policy/alterassess.htm.

In the 2003–04 school year, all students in the following age ranges who are eligible to take the NYSAA must be tested.

Each school superintendent must identify students with severe disabilities who are the responsibility of the district CSE and who must be administered the NYSAA in this school year. The superintendent is responsible for ensuring that these students are tested, regardless of whether they attend district schools or out-of-district placements. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires that schools test 95 percent of all students enrolled in district schools or out-of-district placements in the required grades, or at the required age for ungraded students, to make adequate yearly progress. Therefore, it is important to test all students with severe disabilities in the specified age ranges.

Proposed regulations under NCLB limit the number of students in each district who can be counted as proficient using alternate standards to one percent of the district’s enrollment in each testing grade. In other words, only one percent of students counted in the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) calculation can be students with the NYSAA levels of 2, 3, or 4. If a district exceeds that percentage, the excess students must be counted as Level 1, regardless of the actual score. Proposed regulations under NCLB also allow school districts to request an exception to exceed the 1.0 percent limitation based on particular circumstances. The United States Department of Education (USDOE) has not finalized these regulations; therefore, they are subject to change. In view of these proposed regulations, it is critical that students with disabilities be administered the test most appropriate to their abilities.

Districts outside the Big 5 must participate in BOCES regional scoring. Therefore, each district with one or more students eligible to take the NYSAA in 2003–04 must register these students with their Regional Information Center (RIC). RICs will provide these districts with a file template into which pertinent student biographical data must be entered to register these students. The attached file layout shows the biographical data that will need to be collected for NYSAA students. These districts must send a completed file to their RIC by December 12, 2003. If districts have additions or corrections to these lists, a new complete file must be sent to their RIC by January 30, 2004. If districts have no students eligible for the NYSAA this year, they must notify their RIC that they will not be receiving a list of NYSAA students from the district. Using the files sent by the district, RICs will produce student data labels, biographical data sheets, and answer sheets for each registered NYSAA student. RICs will send the data labels and biographical data sheets to districts prior to scoring. Some districts and RICs will be working with scoring site coordinators (SSCs) during this registration process. Please contact your RIC or SSC to determine the process your region will be using.

After identifying the students to be assessed, the superintendent must provide directions for administering the assessment to each school with one or more students to be assessed. The completed datafolios of students placed outside the district must be returned to the district on or before February 17, 2004. All other datafolios must be received by the scoring site coordinator by February 23, 2004. Each student’s datafolio must be placed by the district in a 1½-inch, three-ring binder, as the datafolio may include videotapes, audiotapes, photographs, and samples of student work. Data labels produced by the RICs must be affixed to the datafolio binders and student biographical data sheets must be inserted in the binders before the district delivers the datafolios to the scoring centers. The attached "Not Tested" form must be duplicated and completed for each student whom you registered for whom you have a missing or incomplete datafolio. Completed "Not Tested" forms must be submitted with the student biographical data sheets to your SSC. Regardless of where the student is educated, all datafolios will be scored at the BOCES or Big 5 regional scoring center of the student’s district of residence. All scan documents will be scanned at the scanning center used by the district of residence. Scored datafolios will be returned to the district of residence.

Large city districts not working with a RIC will establish timelines and procedures consistent with the Department’s guidelines for scoring NYSAA datafolios and submitting data files to the Department’s contractor.

SED’s NYSAA contractor, Measured Progress, will use these data to produce district and student reports, that will be sent to districts after scoring. Districts must coordinate with their RICs to have student files with scores and levels returned to the district for LEAP and STEP reporting. The Information and Reporting Services Office of the New York State Education Department will provide directions for reporting 2003–04 NYSAA scores to the Department, using LEAP and STEP, consistent with USDOE regulations.

If you have any questions with regard to NYSAA data collection and reporting, please contact Carolyn Bulson in Information and Reporting Services at (518) 474-7965. If you have any other questions with regard to the NYSAA, please contact Allison LaVallee in the Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) at (518) 474-7566.

Attachments

Student Identification Label:

Directions: For each student for whom you have a missing or incomplete datafolio, check for each subject that applies the term that describes the reason for the student’s datafolio being missing or incomplete.

Absent (Absent): The student was in attendance for fewer than 30 days between November 3, 2003 and February 13, 2004.

Not Tested Due to Administrative Error (Administrative Error): The student was registered to take the NYSAA but no datafolio or an incomplete datafolio was collected for the student because of a teacher’s or administrator’s error. (This term also applies when the datafolio for the student does not reach the scoring center or the answer document does not reach the scanning center.)

Not Enrolled at Time of Test Administration (Not Enrolled): The student left the district before a datafolio could be collected, or the student arrived in the district too late for the district to register the student for NYSAA scoring and a datafolio could not be collected.