Title I AYP Appeals 2010-2011

Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001(NCLB), a local educational agency must give a school an opportunity to appeal its AYP determination if the school’s principal or a majority of parents believe there is evidence that the determination is incorrect. Similarly, before the district AYP determination is made public, a state educational agency must give a school district an opportunity toappeal its AYP determination if there is sufficient evidence that it is incorrect.

This document is intended to highlight the legislation that necessitates a review process, establish procedures and timelines to be used during the process, and help clarify the conditions under which a request for review may be filed.

Relevant text of Section 1116 of NCLB regarding school to district and district to state reviews is presented below.

NCLB Legislation - School to District Requests

Sec. 1116

(2) (A) Identification – Before identifying an elementary or a secondary school for school improvement under paragraphs (1) or (5) (A), for corrective action under paragraph (7), or restructuring under paragraph (8), the local educational agency shall provide the school with an opportunity to review the school-level data, including academic assessment data, on which the proposed identification is based.

(B) Evidence – If the principal of a school proposed for identification under paragraph (1), (5)(A), (7), or (8) believes, or a majority of the parents of the students enrolled in such school believe, that the proposed identification is in error for statistical or other substantive reasons, the principal may provide supporting evidence to the local educational agency, which shall consider that evidence before making a final determination.

(C)Final Determination – Not later than 30 days after a local educational agency provides the school with an opportunity to review such school-level data, the local educational agency shall make public a final determination on the status of the school with respect to the identification.

NCLB Legislation - District to State Requests

Sec. 1116 (3)Identification of Local Educational Agency for Improvement – A State shall identify for improvement a local educational agency that for 2 consecutive years, including the period immediately prior to the date of enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, failed to make adequate yearly progress as defined in the State’s plan under section 1111(b)(2).

(5)Opportunity to Review and Present Evidence

(A)Review - Before identifying a local educational agency for improvement under paragraph (3) or corrective action under paragraph (10), a state educational agency shall provide the local educational agency with an opportunity to review the data, including academic assessment data, on which the proposed identification is based.

(B)Evidence – If the local educational agency believes that the proposed identification is in error for statistical or other substantive reasons, the agency may provide supporting evidence to the State educational agency, which shall consider the evidence before making a final determination not later than 30 days after the State educational agency provides the local educational agency with an opportunity to review such data under paragraph (A).

(6)Notification to Parents – The State educational agency shall promptly provide to the parents (in a format, and to the extent practicable, in a language the parents can understand) of each student enrolled in a school served by the local educational agency identified for improvement, the results of the review under paragraph (1) and , if the agency is identified for improvement, the reasons for that identification and how the parents can participate in upgrading the quality of the local educational agency.

Review Process and Timeline – School to District Requests

Local educational agencies (LEAs) are to make, and notify schools of school AYP determinations immediately following CDE’s release of data (approximately August 2nd).

If the principal of a school, or the majority of parents of children enrolled in a school, believe that the school’s AYP determination made by the district is incorrect, the determination may be appealed to the LEA. Appeal determinations must be final 30 days after the district received data from the state (September 2nd). The appeal changes must be reflected in the data reported to the State through the Automated Data Exchange.

LEAs must collaborate with schools to ensure that the opportunity for review is adequate and implemented in a manner consistent with the NCLB legislation and the conditions outlined below.

Districts must maintain a written record of AYP appeals that includes:

  1. The signature of the Superintendent indicating his or her support of the appeal.
  2. Data presented in a format that demonstrates how the AYP determination or individual targets were incorrect and how the target(s) were met.
  3. A narrative explaining the appeal, in what way the AYP determination regarding the requirement(s) in question was incorrect, and how the requirement has been reached.
  4. Such documentation as necessary to demonstrate that the appeals process was administered in a manner consistent with the NCLB legislation and the conditions set forth by CDE. These records are subject to future audit by CDE and the USDE.

Schools must send public school choice notifications to parents of children enrolled in schools on Improvement(if applicable to the school’s Improvement status)at least 14 days before the first day of school.

LEAs must report to the public on school and district AYP determinations no later than December 31st (or the release of the district’s annual report).

Review Process and Timeline – District to State Requests

CDE will make district AYP determinations around August 2nd.

If the Superintendent believes that the district’s AYP determination made by the State is incorrect, the determination must be appealed to CDE by August 19th.

Appeals must include:

  1. The signature of the Superintendent indicating his or her support of the appeal.
  2. Data presented in a format that demonstrates how the AYP determination or individual targets were incorrect and how the target(s) were met. This includes a list of student SASIDs if specific student records are involved.
  3. A narrative explaining the appeal, in what way the AYP determination regarding the requirement(s) in question was incorrect, and how the requirement has been reached.
  4. A print-out of the district’s AYP results from the Automated Data Exchange, with the specific data to be changed noted and highlighted.

Please use the attached forms as guidelines for submitting appeals.

District appeals shouldbe submitted via e-mail to: .

Or mailed to:Colorado Department of Education

Office of Federal Program Administration

c/o Donna Morganstern

1560 Broadway, Suite 1450

Denver, CO 80202

CDE will ensure that the opportunity for review is adequate and implemented in a manner consistent with the NCLB legislation and the conditions outlined below.

CDE will resolve all district appeals by September 23rd, 2011.

CDE will publicize district AYP determinations soon after. CDE also will work with the district to notify parents about the district’s Improvement status if the district is placed, or remains, on Program Improvement or Corrective Action as a result of AYP determinations.

Conditionsof School and District Requests for Review

Under NCLB, the definition of adequate yearly progress used to make AYP determinations must be “the same for all schools and local educational agencies in the state” (Sec. 1111 (G)(ii). CDE is charged with ensuring that adequate yearly progress determinations are made in a uniform and consistent manner from school to school and district to district. NCLB does allow schools and districts to request a review of the AYP evidencebased on “statistical error or other substantive reasons.” The following sections outline some basic conditions that must be met in making a request for review, some conditions under which a request for review may be made, and some conditions under which a request for review may not be made. Of course, it is impossible to anticipate all of the potential reasons for a review request. However, CDE has tried to address those issues that are most likely to be raised during the AYP determination process. If you have further questions about allowable appeals, please contact Donna Morganstern at or 303-866-6209.

Basic Conditions of Requests for AYP Review

1. Before a request for review is considered, the district Superintendent must indicate support for the request in writing.

All school or district requests for review must be accompanied by the Superintendent’s signature indicating that s/he supports the request.

2. It is the responsibility of the school or district making the request to demonstrate that the overalldetermination or individual target determinations were incorrect.

For example, if a school or a district is appealing the State’s determination that it failed to make AYP because its economically disadvantaged students did not reach the elementary reading proficiency target, the school or district must cite the economically disadvantaged student data used to identify the school/district as not having made AYP, describe or demonstrate how the original data were incorrect or misleading, and present the revised data set that supports a reversal of the original determination.

Districts will have access to the individual student records included in all of the AYP calculations (participation, performance, safe harbor, matched safe harbor, and other indicator at the school and district levels) through the CEDAR2 system. This information will help districts clearly identify the data used to make the AYP determinations and thus can be used to help demonstrate the need for an appeal.

For district appeals, all required data must be submitted by the due date. It delays the entire process when CDE needs to go back to districts for more information on their appeals. If you need assistance determining what data you need to submit, please contact Donna Morganstern () before August 19th.

Districts must maintain written records of AYP school reviews that include the reason for the review, pre- and post-data, and the final determination. The district must be able to document that the review process was administered in a manner consistent with NCLB legislation and the conditions set forth by CDE. These records are subject to future monitoringand audit by CDE and the USDE.

3. Requests for review will be considered if the evidence provided supports the claim that all AYP conditions were met and the preliminary determination is incorrect OR individual missed targets actually were met, even if the overall determination does not change.

In some cases, a school or district may be able to demonstrate that a target that was preliminarily identified as unmet actually has been reached. CDE will accept appeals based on single targets, even if the appeal does not change the overall AYP determination.

4. No changes or updates will be made to the student biographical data housed in CDE’s data warehouse as a result of the review process.

Review results will not alter baseline and subsequent year student-level data that are housed in CDE’s data warehouse. However, the State and LEAs must maintain records of successful and unsuccessful reviews that may inform AYP determinations and reviews of determinations in subsequent years.

5. Districts must have participated in the SOA/SBD process to be eligible to appeal school and district determinations.

If a district did not participate in SOA/SBD, it is not eligible to appeal AYP determinations. SOA/SBD is an integral part of the process to ensure clean data for making accurate AYP determinations.

Acceptable Grounds for Requests for AYP Review

6. Requests for review may be made on the basis of statistical error.

7. Requests for review may be made on grounds of including more students.

CDE allows districts and schools to widen the definition of IEP students through the appeals process. Students exited from IEPs during the 2010-2011 school year, or the 2008-2009and 2007-2008school years,may be included in the IEP disaggregated group. However, all exited students would need to be included, not just some of them. Additionally, if this appeal is used to make safe harbor or matched safe harbor targets, prior year counts must be updated to include the exited students as well, for the same number of years (i.e. adding exited students from the past two years for meeting 2011 safe harbor or matched safe harbortargets also necessitates inclusion of exited students for two years prior to 2010, meaning you need to go back for 3 years of data). This appeal does not allow inclusion of all students in performance calculations--only those who have been continuously enrolled in the school/district for 12 months or more.

8. A request for review may be made if a school or district fails to meet participation rate targets in 2010-2011 if by calculating the participation ratewith 2009-2010 (2-year rate), orwith 2010-2011, 2009-2010 and 2008-2009 (3-year rate), the 95% target is reached.

The 2- and 3-year participation rates will be calculated automatically for districts and displayed in ADE, if necessary. However, CDE will use original participation data for those years. If districts needed to appeal students in or out of those prior calculations, you may still need to submit an appeal to average.

9. A request for review may be made if students were unable to test due to emergency medical conditions.

For students who have suffered significant medical emergencies which prevent them from attending school and participating in the assessment during the entire testing window, (including make-up dates), a district may request that they be removed from participation calculations entirely (denominator and numerator). Documentation that such students have been determined by a medical practitioner to be incapacitated to the extent they are unable to participate in the appropriate State assessment must be included with the appeal.

10. A request for review may be made if the school or district does not make the reading participation rate targets due to the inclusion of newly arrived English language learners.

This appeal applies only to NEP or LEP students who have beenenrolled in US schools for less than 1 year (Date in U.S. on or after 3/09/10) andwere given the English CSAP or CSAPA reading and received a No Score. For AYP calculations this year, students who meet the above criteria, and have an overall score on CELA will be included as reading participants. Districts and schools may appeal to include as participants students who entered the U.S. after the CELA window closed, but before CSAP, if they were given the CELA screener or another English language proficiency assessment.

This appeal does not apply to math participation. In order to be counted as a participant for math, students musthave a valid score on either the CSAP or CSAPA.

11. If a district exceeded the 1% proficient cap on CSAPA, and the randomly converted scores caused the district not to make AYP, or an AYP target, the district may appeal to exceed the 1% cap, if it can support the students tested with CSAPA with the following information:

  • Data demonstrating the incidence of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, such as December Count information (i.e. number of students with a disability label of SLIC, multiple, autism, deaf/blind, etc.).
  • Data demonstrating the number and percent of students topping out of CSAPA, as defined by the following:
  • For reading- the number and percent of students scoring Novice, with all Level of Independence scores of 4.
  • For math- the number and percent of students scoring Novice, with all Level of Independence scores of 4.
  • An explanation for why more than 1% of all students in the district require the alternate assessment.
  • Documentation of:
  1. The determination of eligibility for CSAPA by the IEP team. Please include all factors of consideration besides the presence of a severe cognitive disability.
  1. Local training for IEP teams around eligibility guidelines for CSAPA.
  2. Parent notification that their child will be assessed through the CSAPA and information about and implications of taking this assessment.
  3. Number of students with IEPs taking the general assessment with and without accommodations and the percentage taking the alternate.
  4. District professional development efforts around the appropriate use of accommodations.
  5. Provision of a curriculum and instruction based on expanded benchmarks for students taking the CSAPA (i.e.,standards-driven goals and objectives).

Districts will be notified if their data show an excess of 1% of all CSAP and CSAPA tested students scoring proficient on the CSAPA. This appeal only applies to the district level as schools are not held to the 1% proficiency cap.

12. Adjustments for miscoding of students.

If students’ biographical data have been miscoded, and the district went through the SBD process, the district can (and should) update the data through the appeals process in ADE. For example, if students were miscoded as continuous in school and/or district, this should be fixed in ADE. Additionally, we have found that some students who were coded as continuous in district did not actually have a test score from the prior year assigned to that district. If CDE can find a test score for that student anywhere in the state, we are including that record in matched safe harbor. But the district can appeal these miscoded students out of performance, safe harbor and matched safe harbor (they need to be appealed out of all of those calculations, not just one).