Professional Learning Opportunities & Events

Greetings, Utah ELA Educators, 

We are gearing up for a busy 2025 summer of RISE Assessment development workshop opportunities. Below is a list of assessment development opportunities for the RISE ELA and Writing assessments.  

To register for consideration to participate in any of the following RISE Assessment Development Opportunities, please complete this survey by Wednesday, April 23, 2025 (you do not need to respond to this email unless you have any questions or concerns): https://forms.gle/Sjeqk9E5WkyCbbF96  

Also included is a color-coded calendar of development workshops for ease of planning: 

Opportunity #1 

RISE ELA Rubric Validation 

ELA Grades 3-8  

Dates: Tuesday, June 3, 2025 and Wednesday, June 4, 2025 

Description: Rubric Validation is designed to verify rubrics to ensure items that were field tested on the 2024-2025 RISE ELA Summative assessment are scoring accurately and fairly for all students. The role of participants is to make recommendations regarding the scoring of the items and potential adjustments to the rubrics.  

Location: Marriott University Park - 480 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108 

Time: 8:00AM to 4:00PM.  There will be breaks throughout the day. 

Food: Breakfast, Lunch, and an Afternoon Snack will be provided each day 

Compensation/Substitute: Substitute reimbursement is offered to schools for teachers who participate in the meeting on school time. Please be sure to discuss this time out of the classroom/school with the school administration. Educators whose school is not in session, or who use personal days for the meeting, may receive a stipend of $210 per day.  Travel reimbursement will be provided for every educator who participates. Travel reimbursement is calculated based on the distance the participant has to travel. Every educator who participates will receive 8 relicensure points per day.  

Lodging: Participants qualify for hotel lodging if they have to travel 50 miles or more, one way, from their home to the location. 

Note: Participants must be able to attend both days. 

Opportunity #2 

 RISE Summative Writing Rangefinding 

ELA Grades 5 and 8  

Dates: Monday June 16, 2025 through Friday June 20, 2025 

Description: Participants will review student responses from the 2024-2025 RISE Summative Writing operational field test for the various components during the rangefinding review process as follows:  

• Alignment of student responses to the established scoring rubrics, including to domains (Informational/Expository, Argumentative, Conventions) 

• Consistency of award of score points across student responses and across grade levels using various samples of student writing responses 

• Participants will be assigning scores to the student responses aligned to the established domain 

Location: Doubletree Inn (The Yarrow), 1800 Park Ave, Park City, UT 84060 

Time: 8:30AM to 4:00PM.  There will be breaks throughout the day. 

Food: Breakfast, Lunch, and an Afternoon Snack will be provided each day 

Compensation: Educators who are not on contract, or who use personal days for the meeting, may receive a stipend of $210 per day. Travel reimbursement will be provided for every educator who participates. Travel reimbursement is calculated based on the distance the participant has to travel. Every educator who participates will receive 8 relicensure points per day.  

Lodging: Participants qualify for hotel lodging if they have to travel 50 miles or more, one way, from their home to the location. 

Note: Participants must be able to attend all five days. 

Opportunity #3 

 RISE ELA Data Review 

ELA Grades 3-8  

Dates: Monday, June 30, 2025 through Wednesday, July 2, 2025 

Description: The Data Review Workshop will focus on items that were field tested on the 2024-2025 RISE ELA Summative test. Participants will review large-scale trends in data to identify items with differential bias. Participants will review different sub-groups’ performance on specific items to detect any unfairness. 

Location: Marriott University Park - 480 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108 

Time: 8:00AM to 4:00PM.  There will be breaks throughout the day. 

Food: Breakfast, Lunch, and an Afternoon Snack will be provided each day 

Compensation: Educators who are not on contract, or who use personal days for the meeting, may receive a stipend of $210 per day. Travel reimbursement will be provided for every educator who participates. Travel reimbursement is calculated based on the distance the participant has to travel. Every educator who participates will receive 8 relicensure points per day. 

Lodging: Participants qualify for hotel lodging if they have to travel 50 miles or more, one way, from their home to the location. 

Note: Participants must be able to attend all three days. 

Opportunity #4 

RISE ELA Content Review 

ELA Grades 3-8  

Dates: Tuesday, July 15, 2025 and Wednesday, July 16, 2025 

Description: The RISE Content Workshop will focus on newly written ELA items and clusters that will be field tested on the 2025-2026 RISE ELA Summative assessment. Participants will evaluate the items for content. Items and clusters will be reviewed, and edits recommended to align to Utah ELA standards and item content standards. Participants review all test items for the various components/aspects during the content review process, as follows: 

• Alignment to the Utah Core Standards 

• Grade appropriateness 

• DOK/cognitive complexity of the item as compared with the complexity of the standard 

• Content accuracy 

• Interaction type and appropriateness (e.g., how the student responds) 

Location: Sheraton - 150 W 500 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84101 

Time: 8:00AM to 4:00PM.  There will be breaks throughout the day. 

Food: Breakfast, Lunch, and an Afternoon Snack will be provided each day 

Compensation: Educators who are not on contract, or who use personal days for the meeting, may receive a stipend of $210 per day. Travel reimbursement will be provided for every educator who participates. Travel reimbursement is calculated based on the distance the participant has to travel. Every educator who participates will receive 8 relicensure points per day. 

Lodging: Participants qualify for hotel lodging if they have to travel 50 miles or more, one way, from their home to the location. 

Note: Participants must be able to attend both days. 

Opportunity #5 

RISE Benchmark Writing Rangefinding 

ELA Grades 3- 8  

Dates: Monday, July 28, 2025 through Friday, August 1, 2025 

Description: Participants will review student responses from the 2024-2025 RISE Benchmark Writing field test for the various components during the rangefinding review process, as follows:  

• Alignment of student responses to the established scoring rubrics, including to domains (Informational/Expository, Argumentative, Conventions) 

• Consistency of award of score points across student responses and across grade levels.  Using various samples of student writing responses 

• Participants will be assigning scores to the student responses aligned to the established domain. 

Location: Doubeltree Inn (The Yarrow), 1800 Park Ave, Park City, UT 84060 

Time: 8:30AM to 4:00PM.  There will be breaks throughout the day. 

Food: Breakfast, Lunch, and an Afternoon Snack will be provided each day 

Compensation: Educators who are not on contract, or who use personal days for the meeting, may receive a stipend of $210 per day. Travel reimbursement will be provided for every educator who participates. Travel reimbursement is calculated based on the distance the participant has to travel. Every educator who participates will receive 8 relicensure points per day.  

Lodging: Participants qualify for hotel lodging if they have to travel 50 miles or more, one way, from their home to the location. 

Note: Participants must be able to attend all five days. 

 Opportunity #6 

RISE ELA Standards Setting 

ELA Grades 3- 8  

Dates: Monday, August 4, 2025 through Thursday, August 7, 2025 

Description: The ELA Standards Setting Workshop will generate recommended cut scores to define the boundaries between the proficiency levels for the RISE ELA Summative assessment. During the process of setting proficiency standards, groups of educators will make recommendations about the expected level of performance on the assessments for students to be classified into each proficiency level. Participants use their knowledge of the Utah ELA academic content standards, test items, and student performance to recommend performance standards, or cut scores, associated with each performance level on the ELA RISE assessment. Performance standards specify how much of the academic content standards students must know and be able to do in order to meet each proficiency level. The central purpose of the standard setting process is to draw the lines that separate the test scores into the four proficiency levels. 

Location: Sheraton Park City -1895 Sidewinder Dr, Park City, UT 84060 

Time: 8:00AM to 4:00PM.  There will be breaks throughout the day. 

Food: Breakfast, Lunch, and an Afternoon Snack will be provided each day 

Compensation: Educators who are not on contract, or who use personal days for the meeting, may receive a stipend of $210 per day. Travel reimbursement will be provided for every educator who participates. Travel reimbursement is calculated based on the distance the participant has to travel. Every educator who participates will receive 8 relicensure points per day.  

Lodging: Participants qualify for hotel lodging if they have to travel 50 miles or more, one way, from their home to the location. 

Note: Participants must be able to attend all four days. 

We appreciate you taking an active role in Utah’s assessment development process.  

To register for consideration to participate in any of the following RISE Assessment Development Opportunities, please complete this survey by Wednesday, April 23, 2025 (you do not need to respond to this email unless you have any questions or concerns): https://forms.gle/Sjeqk9E5WkyCbbF96 

Please know that there is limited space, so all respondents are not guaranteed a spot. Committee participants are chosen to comprise an accurate representation of Utah educators. We will let you know as soon as possible if you have been chosen to participate to make the appropriate arrangements. 

Feel free to pass this information along to other ELA educators with expertise in the Utah Core Standards and at least two years of teaching experience. Please contact us with any questions or concerns. 

Thanks for all you do! 

Dallas Brooks (ELA Grades 3-5) Dallas.brooks@schools.utah.gov  

Megan Lopez (ELA Grades 6-8) Megan.lopez@schools.utah.gov  

Megan Lopez, M.Ed.

Education Specialist, Secondary English Language Arts|WIDA

A2A Program Manager

Assessment & Accountability

Utah State Board of Education

Phone: (801) 538-7723

Email: megan.lopez@schools.utah.gov