[Assessment_Advisory_Committee] TDS downtime in December

[Bill Stewart]

Jordan,

At least for my district, the proposed closure window amounts to 4 schools days, Dec 15,16,17,18.  The remainder of the window is during our Winter Break.  At a guess, I’d say that a fair number of districts may be nearly the same, with the possible addition of the 19th as a school day.

From my perspective, the week before Winter Break would be a very low priority to use for training staff. In fact, even without the proposed closure, I would do everything possible to avoid using that week for training.

No matter what you decide, EARLY and FREQUENT COMMUNICATION is essential about any closure or access change.

IMO, districts who are planning to use that December time slot for training would be better served to do training right after Winter Break…when staff are rested and focused on the tests that need to administered.

I hope this helps….

Bill

Bill Stewart
503-805-8680 - c




On Oct 8, 2014, at 2:49 PM, HERMENS Jordan <jordan.hermens at ode.state.or.us> wrote:

> Good afternoon,
>  
> The OAKS Test Delivery System (which includes the training site and practice tests) is currently scheduled to be offline December 26 to December 28 in preparation for the launch of our operational OAKS Science, Social Sciences, and ELPA tests in January. AIR is strongly recommending taking this opportunity to conduct extensive load testing prior to the launch of the Smarter Balanced tests (scheduled for March). However,  to support this critical QC step, we would need to take the Test Delivery System offline for more than the three days currently scheduled, and  AIR is proposing to take the Test Delivery System offline from December 15 to December 26. TIDE and Online Reporting would not be affected.
>  
> Before scheduling this extended downtime, ODE would appreciate your input to determine the impact of this proposed downtime on districts’ ability to complete TA training. With DTC training happening later  than in years past, ODE recognizes that districts will need to push back their TA training schedules accordingly. We’d like to take districts’ training schedules into account so that we can ensure they have access to the training site and practice tests as part of their training regimen.
> To what extent are many districts likely to be conducting TA training December 15 – 26?
> To the extent that some TA training may be scheduled for December 15 – 26, can the impact on districts be sufficiently mitigated by communicating about the downtime now?
>  
> So that we can confirm the downtime schedule with our vendor and communicate to the field in a timely fashion, we’d appreciate your feedback by noon on Friday (10/6). Thank you for your consideration,
>  
>  
>  
> Jordan Hermens
> Oregon Department of Education
> 255 Capitol St NE | Salem, OR 97310 | É503-947-5905
>  
>  
>  
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