The Number of Collections Has Been Limited to Reduce the Burden on Leas

The number of collections has been limited to reduce the burden on LEAs.

There are the same number of elements but the frequency has been reduced.

The Data Dictionary and Validation of Data Elements have temporarily been suspended to get the Data Consolidation complete. PDE will begin working on those shortly.

Data Validation – PDE is only collecting what they need. Is it in in PIMS? Is it a Federal mandate? Can we eliminaite duplicates? How can we integrate it into the collection calendar so it is not a burden?

SIS Vendors – some are having difficulty with the changes but no vendor has reported that they cannot make the changes. Some changes PDE made are in line with other states so vendors may already infrastructure built in. Remind your vendor of monthly PDE/Vendor meetings 1:00 p.m.

SLIDE 10

Prior to 2014-15, LEAs had to query students, sort students manually manipulate a file for a snapshot. The new Internal Snapshot helps you to schedule times for loading data.

You may want to get in the practice of uploading changes every Friday (or any other day) so you won’t have to scurry to get recent data during a collection window.

The School Enrollment and Student Templates are going to be very important this year – accuracy and timeliness are critical.

You will need a record for the student before you can use it in other templates. You will not be required to upload multiple times. You will have the ability to clone but it is not necessary. The rules have been rewritten to see what is in the warehouse.

Question from Q & A – Does Student Template need to be in other collections? It is part of Collection 6 that is open throughout the year. You only need to make updates. The system will look at the updates and any information that was already there.

If you do not have information for the School Performance Profile (SPP) in PIMS for the uploads you will receive a 0 for that category. PDE will not contact schools for information.

SLIDE 11

You can run a report before the snapshot so you can control what goes into snapshot and be sure there are no errors.

SLIDE 12

Some Snapshots will still be required from LEAs.

SLIDE 13

A reminder will be sent to PIMS Administrators 2 weeks before the Internal Snapshot.

SLIDE 14

All templates will be available on the PIMS website once they are fully tested.

There will be a 5 a.m. refresh after an Internal Snapshot.

***There will be no correction window after the Internal Snapshot.***

Use the pre-snapshot report to verify content.

If LEAs don’t follow the process, 29 submissions can be reinstated.

SLIDE 15

You already use this information for Child Accounting.

The School enrollment template is only used to track entry and withdrawal information.

If a student returns prior to 10/1 you may delete the drop out code and replace with enrollment code.

Question from Q & A – Can the entire enrollment template be deleted? No. If you delete the student enrollment every record will be gone from PIMS. Use the DELETE feature. (See Slide 25)

SLIDE 16

PDE will refresh production data once per month. You are always 4 weeks away from correct.

All LEAs can make changes in the Sandbox. It is recommended to make changes in SIS and reload or rerun the file.

Question from Webinar – What happens if another district does not claim a student in PIMS? Will our data be rejected?

Be sure your data is accurate and timely. It is a snapshot – just one point in time – if another district is not as prompt as you it is not your job to correct. PDE is not looking for you to correct based on another LEA.

SLIDE 18

Field 217 is used for cohort grad rate

The Keystone Assessment fields have been split into three areas – Winter, Spring, Summer

These fields indicate the students you intend to test in the Valid Values area.

Students in multiple LEAs should not be listed by both LEAs. Multiple submissions will be invalidated.

SLIDE 19

CDT Enrollment Code retired. Registration used to go through PIMS. Once each month PDE would send the information to DRC and districts set up test sessions.

Issues:

1. Districts did not know when info was sent. Any changes were overridden with the new month. Last year LEAs were able to upload on their own with SIS Infrastructure.

2. If PDE send the info every child in the school will be sent to DRC. PDE will not send vendors extra information.

3. Your SIS can be customized – PIMS is limited.

SLIDE 21

3 fields for poverty

88 is used for assessments and disaggregation

This is NOT = Free and Reduced Lunch. Use the broader definition from Federal Designation. This is used for Teacher Loan Forgiveness.

Reason: Older students tend not to return forms. This is not an accurate status of poverty in district.

Community Eligibility Districts – This will not be 100%. Accurately identify poverty status of students.

Poverty Data Sources: Food and Nutrition at PDE or LEA Business Manager can help with this.

This field gets reported to the public.

SLIDE 23

Codes are specific to templates. Do not load into system – just a guideline. Some do not map 1:1.

You may need to remap local codes. Use the Enrollment/Withdrawal code crosswalk – Document on under September 2014 meeting items.

Withdrawal tracking

From PDE - Do not withdraw if you do not have verification of enrollment (record request). Federal standard - if you don’t know where they go they are a drop out. They cannot be a transfer unless you know if it is in-state or out of state. PA is drastically underreporting drop outs especially over the summer.

Getting records can be difficult. In the snapshot be sure that it is “the truth as you know it.” Do not assume that someone transferred. Follow-up and look at PDE guidelines.

Question from Q & A – What is Johnny is a withdrawal on Friday but there is no request for records. He is a drop out. Auditors will request a proof of transfer. Don’t worry about the enrollment date – keep with the “truth as you know it.”

How does this affect PVAAS? Enrollment in school is not the same as enrollment in course. Check with your SIS to see how this is done. Most reporting in PIMS if for the school year. Child accounting is the exception.

PDE is working with the vendors to rewrite the DQE rule.

SLIDE 24

AAP – Adult Affidavit Programs

SLIDE 25

Your next record should be the corrected record.

SLIDES 26-27

Act 16 will be collected on Student Fact template. This information was collected in previous years but will now be in PIMS. Momre guidance to follow.

Business Managers received an email week of 9/2 from Sue Leonard:

We have been hearing concerns on behalf of the school districts/charter schools about the PIMS reporting of the Act 16 Expenditures per Student. The only thing changing in the reporting, is that we are having them report it in PIMS instead of the paper report we usually received. SDs/CSs should be calculating their expenditures per student as they have in the past. If they are worried about the time line, extensions will be approved on a case by case basis. Please let your school district and charter school business managers/special education directors know that there are no big changes in this process to date. Additional guidance will be forwarded from PDE in the future.

Question from Q & A – DO we need to find the exact calculation for Act 16 costs? LEAs use the same method as previous years until additional guidance comes. Send questions to PDE to produce FAQs. Training will be provided.

SLIDE 28

9999 has been retired from field 46.

Field 70 now recognized the 9 digit AUN number and service provider name.

Field 71 (building name) – IUs do not have a building number. PDE is working on this. In the meantime, use the name.

PIMS Database is a product of eScholar (like other states). They requested that it no longer be a PA Specific field. The location list will not be maintained. Any text is acceptable.

SLIDE 29

Staff Student Course was introduced last year to help with Roster Verification. This has been reworked to the Staff Student Subtest template.

Answers the question “Which teachers have instructional responsibility for each student?” and is beneficial fr courses that have more than one assessment associated with it – 7th/8th grade math and Algebra Keystones. There will be two sets of records for each assessment.

Template will be developed.

SLIDE 31

LEP/ELL retires codes can be derived from other student records

District Fact template - easy to use Excel Spreadsheet will be posted to PIMS website once it is tested and validated. This will be like PATI survey.

SLIDE 34

These timelines must be followed for reduced number of submissions to be successful.

If timelines are not met:

• Affects Federal reporting
• Assessments – can lead to hand bubbling

Schedule time to work data each week.

DQE rules apply in the Sandbox

SLIDE 36

6 collections total

Inside each collection are numerous “Data Sets”

Multiple data sets – prior and current year

LEA Created student snapshot

Question from Q & A – If we already submitted the 13-14 data do we need to resubmit? No. It is the same PIMS system.

If you do need to submit it use the 13-14 templates.

Exception – Act 16 – use the Student Fact template.

Question from Tech Coordinators – Since more data will be uploaded at one time will there be a server issue? As per PDE – it should not be an issue as it is a very robust system. They are aware of the Cognos connectivity issues and this has been elevated to a Level II (next to the top in priority).

SLIDE 37

First Special Ed collection

PATI  Tech Coordinators

There is an Internal Snapshot taken for Special Education – for demographics

Charter schools will submit also for all special ed submissions.

This may not be advertised 2 weeks prior because it is part of a normal collection.

The Internal Snapshot is intended to be “seamless and invisible.”

Question from Q&A – Is this the only time LEAs get to report students who are not educated in the school? Nothing has changed. All other reports are completed by educating LEA. The record counts and has a purpose. PDE will take it into consideration when looking at cohort grad rate.

SLIDE 39

2nd Special Ed Collection

You are not required to wait to upload all templates at once. ELLs not tied to Special Ed. There are some dependencies but these will be addressed in trainings prior to each collection. Due dates have changed but dependent templates are mostly the same. Guidance to come prior to collection.

One student template may be used for multiple data sets only if it is from the same year

SLIDE 41

Student Updates and Internal Snapshots can be updated weekly – open all year

If you update often you will always have data that can be retrieved even if your PIMS person is no longer at the district or if your server room catches fire (it happened). Once you put the data in you will always have something to work with.

Examples that should be updated frequently: Staff, Student, Course

Exceptions:

Course HQT and CDT closes 6/30

PVAAS closes 3/25

District Fact closes 7/31

Safe Schools – some schools prefer not to upload until they receive verification from police department. LEAs are encouraged to keep information up to date, NOT required.

Question from webinar – Can there be a secure FTP site? PDE is working on it – Data Manager EDM

SLIDE 42

PIMS will close at 12:00 a.m. to take the snapshot so it will actually be the following date. Ex. 12/1 snapshot will be taken on 12/2. Deadline still stands.

SLIDE 45

If more than one LEA reports student no one will receive the pre-code label.

Booklets should be ordered by LEA that tests. IU29 has requested that districts order for MAC students for Winter Pre-code.

The fields reported are not used for graduation rate, accountability, etc. It is only to see who gets a label.

Why so early (9/29)? Date was determined by PDE Bureau of Accountability and Accuracy to send to vendor. DRC wanted it earlier, PDE compromised.

What is new students enroll? A majority of your students will be there if you met this deadline.

Question - how to code for PBAs(Project Based Assessments) – not needed – there are no labels for PBAs.

Question from Q & A – Do students need to be enrolled in a course that ends in the Winter? Generally speaking it should be but PDE is not validating this year. Ex. 11th grade taking for accountability/retakes

PVAAS comes into play here – Only students enrolled in a Keystone course will count for School Performance Profile (SPP)

Both pieces are important.

SLIDE 50

The Sandbox is NOT the same as a Staging Area.

The “Staging Area” is PDE’s development environment. Most LEAs do not have access to this. PDE uses this as a testing area.

The “Sandbox” is an area for LEAs to run their data to see if there are any issues prior to uploading to PIMS.

This is not a “submit pit” and will be refreshed each month.

Questions from Q & A – Will it supply Cognos reports or will it look at data for DQE rules? It will supply some but not all operational reports. There will be verification and validation reports and a slimmed-down version of the ACS.

Where do I find the Sandbox? There will be a link in PDE apps – where you log in to PIMS.

Will this take the place of the DQU? No. You don’t need to use the Sandbo. It is available for your testing to be sure yur uploads and files are working properly. You will take the tested files and upload them to PIMS.