📊 School Improvement Framework Application

The School Improvement Framework (SIF) enables districts to view schools individually on seven academic indicators and compare the performance of the desired subgroup population against that of all students.  This article provides helpful information for users before they use the School Improvement Framework application.  Each of the various indicators is addressed, including summaries of business rules, cautions, and any setup required for each portion.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The SIF tool was developed based on the business rules of ESSA/WSIF in Washington State, which are available here.  You can select either a single year or multiple years.  The intention is that the tool will mimic what would be your WSIF "results" as you look at data from a single year or multiple years.  

The results are very close to what will be found in the files from OSPI, but there are a few cases where SDS cannot fully implement the business rules, especially when examining the current year.  For example, in the current year, a student may not have attended for the required number of days to be counted in an indicator, but will by the end of the school year. Therefore, they might not be counted right now, but will be counted when the school year ends.  Many indicators are unavailable for the current year until the required number of school/calendar days has occurred. Extensive validation testing done by several districts in ESD 105 found that the numbers are within 1-2% or better.

One must also be cognizant of available data when selecting indicators and years.  Depending on the time of year, if you examine all measures for a school and the previous school year alone, you may see an incomplete data display.  This results from situations such as the ELPA21 scores not being available yet; you may have incomplete SBA ELA/Math data as all testing has not yet occurred, or the SGPs being blank because that data isn’t available until October.  As you select each indicator separately, you see blank data screens where the data is not available yet for the indicator.

Districts have been using tools to indicate their deciles for the previous year, even though the files were not yet released from OSPI.  Districts have also used this for the current year for indicators where the data is present.

ALL MEASURES

Individual school measures can be determined by selecting the school and year(s) of interest.  Remember, there are no district WSIF measures; only school-level measures are available. Additionally, current-year All Measures are only available after the enrollment requirements in the business rule are met.  

PROFICIENCY/STUDENT GROWTH

Proficiency and Student Growth are determined with data loaded into SDS assessments.  The results are embedded in business rules for student enrollment and other considerations (such as EL participation and exclusion from ELA assessments).  Preliminary proficiency results are used until the final files are available and loaded.  Remember that Student Growth data is not typically available until October 15 or after for the previous year’s assessments.

GRADUATION RATE

The graduation rate applies to only schools that graduate students.  Individual school years and three-year cohorts can be selected to determine rates.  Where available, 5-year and 6-year adjusted rates are also available.  

REGULAR ATTENDANCE RATE

The Regular Attendance Rate is determined by students enrolled for 90 calendar days in the school year.  Current year data is not available until school/calendar requirements are met. However, prior years can be easily viewed.  

EL PROGRESS RATE

EL Progress is determined by students who have at least two ELPA21 scores and are making progress as determined by the OSPI progress chart.

Reference: 2018 Washington School Improvement Framework Business Rules found here 

Because the rules require two years, selecting a single year to investigate will result in Invalid results.  Additionally, OSPI has not released business rules regarding the 2018-2019 school year scores.  This means that the indicator is using rules from the 2017-2018 school year and applying them to the 2018-2019 school year, which may ultimately be incorrect.  Once the 18-19 school year rules are available, the tool will be updated.

DUAL CREDIT RATE

The Dual Credit Rate applies only to schools that offer dual credit courses as defined by OSPI.  SDS uses the course code indicators of Running Start, College in the High School, AP/IB, and Tech Prep.  To ensure that all dual credit courses are accurately counted, a district can submit a list in Excel of dual credit courses (including course name and course code) to support@schooldata.net to update the listings used to determine this student’s enrollment in dual credit classes.

NINTH GRADE ON TRACK

This indicator utilizes first-time ninth-grade students, their attempted courses, and any recorded F grades in those courses.  Different methods used in districts to withdraw students from courses can impact this indicator.