January 26, 2021
Delaware Academy Families—
Yesterday, NYSED released plans regarding their intent to apply for a waiver for NYS 3-8 and Regents Exam assessments and calculation of ESSA accountability measures with the U.S. Department of Education. This is a strong early indication of their current position, reflecting the same rationale that was communicated in the cancellation of January Regents exams. NYSED is currently asking for public comments through February 5 via a survey (linked here) and open submission of comments through e-mail. Following the application to the U.S. Department of Education, if approved, it will return to the NYS Board of Regents for final approval. Please see the attached announcement which provides links to both.
As your Superintendent, I support the waiver request. Our teachers and students have been working relentlessly to maintain continuity of learning through the provision of high quality, rigorous instruction in many cases to prepare for these high stakes assessments. However, given the many challenges associated with various learning models during the pandemic, to assume that all students have had equitable access to content across NYS is simply unreasonable, much less to consider that district accountability be based on these results. This is in no way meant to diminish the hard work and focus that everyone puts in every day. Should this be approved, we will not relent in bringing our students at Delaware Academy the same high quality learning experiences we have continued to provide.
Instead, it gives us an opportunity to breathe, re-focus and design learning experiences that are focused on the core skills and concepts within our curriculum in meaningful, engaging, and deep ways. It puts the passion and expertise of our teachers to design instruction back in the driver's seat. We also have an opportunity to rethink how we measure student progress toward standards and mastery of content in ways that make sense - think authentic assessment, performance-based assessment, project-based learning, formative assessment. This is an opportunity to advocate for more local control of the evaluation of students, teachers, and administrators.
I encourage everyone to read the public release and submit your thoughts and input wherever you may stand on this important topic. Thank you for reading and have a great day!
Kelly M. Zimmerman
Superintendent of Schools
Delaware Academy Central School District at Delhi
(607) 746-1305
kzimmerman@delhischools.org
NYSED Parent Dashboard Now Available!
The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has developed a Parent Dashboard to increase transparency and make information about school performance and other school-level data easier for parents and the public to access. The Parent Dashboard is part of New York’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, which emphasizes equity in education for all students and expands measures of school accountability and student success. This new dashboard will provide parents with information about their child’s school. The Parent Dashboard is now available in addition to the New York State School Report Card on NYSED’s public data site. The Parent Dashboard offers information on all public schools including charter schools.
In 2019, NYSED gathered feedback from parents and stakeholders to guide the work of developing the Parent Dashboard. The data elements that parents ranked highest on the survey are available on the Parent Dashboard.
NYSED is now gathering additional feedback from parents and stakeholders to guide further enhancements to the Parent Dashboard. We invite parents and community members to explore the Parent Dashboard and provide feedback via an online feedback survey NYSED will use this feedback to identify the data that is most useful to parents and the public to make further improvements.
