Attendees will analyze a sample individual score report and offer feedback to the family of the demo student. This exercise will be followed by breaking down the individual score report into its component parts, and conclude by addressing the reporting requirements under ESSA.

This presentation is designed to help educators who work with English learners to understand how WIDA assessment score reports can be interpreted meaningfully for instructional purposes and to support students' English language development outside of the classroom too. It will cover the fundamentals of WIDA and Montana's ELP standards, the WIDA proficiency scale, and practical application of the WIDA Can-Do Philosophy.

Attendees will analyze a sample ELA and math individual score report, for those students who are eligible to participate in an alternate assessment, and offer feedback to the family of the demo student. This exercise will be followed by breaking down the individual score report into its component parts, and conclude by addressing the reporting requirements under ESSA.

The session will review the score reports that students and schools receive for the ACT with Writing state assessment. An overview of how to read the scores, what they mean, and how to share them with parents will be provided. The session will also include steps to access the score reports.

In this session we will walk through in detail the steps that Montana took to ensure that the assessment of our new science standards is aligned with best practice and provides the field with balanced assessment resources for science. Participants in this session will leave with a comprehensive understanding of the steps and timeline taken in development, and with a working understanding of how the available tools for science assessment can be used by Montana schools.

The American Indian Student Achievement (AISA) Unit leads the charge in the State of Montana towards closing the American Indian student achievement gap. To do that, we first must recognize that this is not an achievement gap but an equity and opportunity gap. The AISA team will present the 2019-20 achievement report that includes data on student outcomes of state-wide assessments for American Indian students. Along with the data we will present the research that has been conducted with stakeholders in education that service American Indian students. This research will provide more focus towards the need for change that must occur to close the gap as well and to match the educational paradigm of the American Indian learners.

This session covers three years of trends with the SBAC Interims. The 2020 analysis looked at matched pairs of students that took the same topical area assessment in FY19 and FY20. Results indicate there are challenges with this set of students. Average scores declined in a significant fashion albeit in content areas that had previously been seen to produce little growth. The 2019 analysis looked at trends among students that participated and did not participate in the assessments. Students that participated had statistically significant higher outcomes than non participating peers. The 2018 analysis looked at the subject areas in order to see what assessments were more effective in producing growth.

In this session we will take a deep dive into the formative and interim portions of our state balanced assessment system for science. Participants will leave with clear information about how to access and use the available interim assessments within science instruction, an understanding of the state efforts to support formative assessment in science, and how to participate in ongoing development and training efforts.