Massachusetts Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education
75 Pleasant Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148-4906 Telephone: (781) 338-3000
TTY: N.E.T. Relay 1-800-439-23
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Adult and Community Learning Services
TO: ABE Directors, SABES Coordinators, Career Centers, LWIB,
Teacher/All Staff
FROM: Jolanta Conway, MA AE State Director
DATE: January 12, 2018
RE: ACLS January 2018 Monthly Mailing
The monthly mailing for January will be posted to our website shortly. Please review the information and share with your staff.
Ø ACLS Welcomes Mike Farma
Mike Farma has joined ACLS as the High School Equivalency Specialist (formerly HSE Chief Examiner staffed by Tom Mechem). Mike comes to us from Boston Centers for Youth & Families where he was the Adult Education Unit Manager and HSE Chief Examiner. We welcome Mike to the team. Please contact him with your HSE Testing issues. He can be reached at – 781-338-3836.
Ø FY2019-22 Open and Competitive RFP
Ø Assessment Updates
Ø HSE Updates
Ø Mid-Year Outstationing Report Due January 31, 2018
Ø Professional Development Announcements
Ø SMARTT Update
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FY2019-22 Open and Competitive RFP
The FY2019-22 Open and Competitive RFP for CALCs as well as Distance Learning and Primary Instruction by Volunteers can be found here. Proposals were due on December 22, 2017 by 3:00 pm. ACLS anticipates to announce funding awards for programs in April.
Assessment Updates
1. Clarification on Primary Assessment Area and Assessment Score Data
In order to accommodate programs that operate on open student enrollment, ACLS has revised the previously issued policy regarding the deadline for setting the Primary Assessment Area (PAA) of December 1st.
Starting FY2018, programs must set their student PAA before the monthly attendance lockout dates. For a list of the monthly attendance lockout dates in FY2018, see the SMARTT Dashboard.
Assessment scores (pre- and post-assessment as available) must also be entered before the monthly lockout dates.
2. BEST Plus 2.0 Annual Recertification
Key dates to remember:
· Friday, January 26, 2018: deadline for program directors to send the BEST Plus 2.0 FY18 Recertification form to SABES
· Wednesday, February 28, 2017: deadline for BEST Plus 2.0 certified practitioners needing to recertify to submit Scoring Activity # 1 online.
3. Exception to the 18 Attendance Hour Pre-Testing Policy
The National Reporting System (NRS) requires that all students who have 12 or more hours of attendance be included in all federal report tables.
All students must be pre-tested within the first 18 hours of attendance but students can be pre-tested prior to enrollment (with the exception of MAPT, see MAPT section in chapter 5-Test Administration Procedures of the Assessment Policies Manual).
Exception to the 18 Attendance Hour Pre-Testing policy:
Due to the time-consuming re-testing requirements of the CLAS E-Reading and the CLAS E-Writing assessments (see Chapter 5-Test Administration Procedures below), programs using these two assessments can administer these pre-tests after students have reached 18 attendance hours.
It is, however, in the best interest of programs to re-test students (if applicable as per the CLAS E-Writing and CLAS E-Reading re-testing guidelines) as soon as possible to ensure that 65 hours of instruction (see post-testing policy below) occur between pre-tests and post-tests.
The assessment policies manual has been revised to reflect this exception.
4. TABE 11/12- Reminder
As announced in the October 2016 mailing, TABE 11/12 version is now approved by the NRS. However, ACLS-funded programs currently using the TABE 9/10 must continue to use the TABE 9/10 forms until further notice
HSE Monthly Update
Effective January 1, 2018, the HiSET Exam added additional questions to subtest but not more time. ETS has researched the impact of this change and concluded that there is no adverse impact on test taker scores. Further information can be found at HiSET - Test at a Glance.
Massachusetts now has access to GED PREP Connect©. GEDPrep Connect©helps GED©candidates find teachers in their local area by routing them to the Adult Education Locater when they create an account onGED.com. Furthermore, lists of GED©candidates who express interest in a program will be shared with adult educators in those programs that participate in GEDPrep Connect©. For more information or to participate in GEDPrepConnect©, please email Scott Salesses at ith the name of two individuals from your program who should have access to GEDPrepConnect©. More information is available at https://www.gedtestingservice.com/educators/gedprepconnect.
Mid-Year Outstationing Report Due January 31, 2018
This is a reminder that the mid-year outstationing report is due Wednesday, January 31, 2018. The time period for the report is September 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017. The report should include the following:
1. Number of referrals made to AE programs by program:
· Of the total number, how many were enrolled in classes.
· Of the total number, how many were placed on waiting lists.
2. Number of AE students enrolled at One-Stop Career Centers (i.e., shared customers).
3. Activities conducted by the outstationed staff member for AE programs and partner agencies (e.g. OSCCs, Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission).
4. Top two success stories.
Programs should email their reports to Derek Kalchbrenner at ACLS at , and should copy their program specialist and workforce development board executive director.
Professional Development Announcement
Update on the SABES PD System Rebid
The FY19-FY22 open and competitive RFP for ESE’s Adult Education PD System is expected to be released at the end of January 2018. This is a revision of the PD announcement made in the December 2017 ACLS monthly mailing.
SMARTT Update
All updates can be found on the SMARTT Dashboard by following this link: http://www.doe.mass.edu/acls/smartt/dashboard/. You can also access the dashboard by clicking on “What’s New” from the SMARTT landing page. Be sure to visit the dashboard often to get the latest information on all things related to SMARTT.
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