IASEP Parent FAQ

Parent FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

About IASEP

2001-2002

(click on the highlighted words to learn more about them)

About Assessment

What is an “alternate assessment”?
An alternate assessment is an assessment designed for those children with IEPs who cannot participate in State and district-wide assessment programs even with accommodations. This alternate assessment should reflect the same intended purpose as the regular assessment.
For Indiana students the regular assessment, ISTEP+, is intended to be a "source of information for state and local decision-makers with regard to educational matters, including: overall academic progress, the need for new or revised educational programs, the need to terminate existing educational programs, student readiness for post-secondary experiences, overall curriculum development and revision activities, diagnosing individual students needs and teacher training and staff development activities." (ISTEP+ Program Manual 2001-2002, pp. 45-46)

What is IASEP?
IASEP is designed as an alternative to ISTEP+ for Indiana students who have extensive educational needs. It is a comprehensive alternate assessment system that consists of (a) teacher ratings of student performance on standards-based academic and functional skills linked to (b) supportive evidence regarding those ratings.

Participation

Who decides that my child will participate in IASEP?
A child's IEP team (case conference committee) is responsible for this decision.

Do I have the right to refuse my child’s participation in the assessment?
Federal law requires that all students enrolled in public schools participate in wide-scale assessment and accountability systems. The new requirements of IDEA 97 are intended to ensure that students with disabilities benefit from standards-based reform initiatives along with their general education peers, that the needs of all children are counted and considered in the large picture of educational reform.

Can I choose not to have audio clips, video clips, and digital images of my child included in the assessment?
IASEP provides the opportunity to link teacher ratings on assessment items with examples of each child’s work in an electronic format or portfolio. At this time such information (for example, audio-clips, video-clips, scanned images) is not required or collected by the Indiana State Department of Education. Teachers and parents, however, have found this kind of information useful in documenting student progress and guiding individualized instruction.

How is IASEP beneficial to my child’s education?
In addition to state accountability, IASEP can be used as an assessment tool to measure achievement toward educational goals and objectives. It can be used to guide educational programming to meet the needs of individual children. IASEP can also serve to smooth transitions for students as they move from one teacher or one school setting to another. Multimedia records make it easy to communicate a student's special needs, likes, and abilities.

Assessment Process

In what areas is my child being assessed?

Currently the IASEP software addresses five domains or topic areas and includes over 1000 skills – about 200 skills for each domain. The five domains are:

1. Academic Skills - including general education standards in language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science, grades K-3.

2. Social Adjustment - including social communication, participation in group settings, relationships with others, and contributions

3. Personal Adjustment - including personal care, domestic living, and responsibility

4. Vocational Experience - including preparing-for-work activities, work skills, work behaviors, and self appraisal

5. Recreation and Leisure - including leisure time activities, safety, and physical fitness

How are my child's abilities rated?

The Rating Process

The teacher ratings are completed as a three-step process:

a. The teacher rates the student on a set of core items using a specified scale (see the Rating Rubric). This core includes 20 representative items from each of the five IASEP domain areas and is referred to as the Core 100. All IASEP students are rated on these core items.

b. Based on the average rating for each domain of the Core 100, the teacher chooses an appropriate level of skill difficulty to create an individualized set of skills. Consequently, a student with uneven skill development could have an assessment that would include skills from Level A (Entry) in the academic domain, Level B (Intermediate) in the vocational experience, personal adjustment and recreation and leisure domains, and level C (Advanced) in the social adjustment domain.

c. The teacher completes the ratings on this narrowed list of skills.

The Rating Rubric

Teachers use the following rubric to rate student performance on each standard or skill:

Participant –

Involved in instructional activities that use the knowledge or skill but does not

demonstrate it.

Emergent –

Shows understanding or use of the knowledge or skill in one environment with

extensive educational support. The student performs the skill only with teacher

assistance.

Supported –

Shows understanding or use of the knowledge or skill occasionally in one or

more environments with moderate educational support. The student makes errors.

Functional –

Shows the ability to apply the knowledge or skill frequently in more than one

environment with little instructional support. The student makes occasional errors.

Independent –

Shows the ability to apply the knowledge or perform the skill accurately in

several environments without instructional support.

Not applicable –

The skill is so noted when it is currently not applicable to the student’s program

or the rater had no opportunity to observe a skill.

The Selected Domain Assessment Levels

IASEP contains over 1000 curricular and developmental skills. Each skill has been assigned an assessment level: entry, intermediate or advanced. For each domain, teachers select a specific level for each student. The teacher can also choose additional items from other levels if any important skills were missed at the selected level. The student is then rated on this individualized sub-set of skills.

The Supportive Evidence

Evidence that supports teacher ratings can be collected across the school year. Depending on the skill, teachers may collect information every day, each week, each month, or each quarter. Having certain equipment available in the classroom at all times can make it possible to capture student development as it occurs. The hand-held video camera, about the size of a computer mouse, is easily used directly from the laptop. It is unobtrusive and students have quickly become accustomed to its presence. Likewise the digital camera can be used to capture events both within the classroom and within the community and the scanner can be used to regularly capture any work that would be appropriate for a paper portfolio. Audio clips can be gathered directly from the laptop or augmented with the external microphone. As the teacher gathers this documentation, it is stored in your child's electronic portfolio and linked directly to the skill being documented.

Confidentiality

Is the assessment information confidential? Who will have access to my child’s assessment?

IASEP assessment information is strictly confidential. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20USC section 1232c), which applies to written records, also applies to electronic records. Only parents and designated school personnel will have access to your child's assessment information. Parents must grant permission before their child’s assessment information can be shared with others.

If the laptop belonging to my child's teacher were stolen, would confidential student data be accessible to the person who stole it?

The confidential child data in the IASEP system are safeguarded by teacher passwords. Only those people given access by your child’s teacher can review your child’s assessment data.

If a child's encryption code were broken, would every child’s information within the IASEP system be obtainable?

No. Every data file has a different encryption key. Every computer also has a different encryption key.

Reports

Who gets a copy of my child’s report?

Student reports are generated by the IASEP Team at Purdue University. A copy of each report is then mailed to your child's special education planning district. It is the district’s responsibility to distribute these reports to teachers and parents.

What information about my child is reported to the Indiana Department of Education?

State level and individual district level reports are generated by the IASEP team at Purdue University. Copies of these summary reports are forwarded to the Associate Superintendent for Instruction in charge of the Division of Special Education and to each planning district. The state summary report, not individual student reports, is available on both the INDOE website and the IASEP website at:

http://arc.education.purdue.edu/IASEP/Summary_Data_Report.pdf

Parent Involvement

Am I able to view my child’s assessment information and documentation?

Parents are encouraged not only to view assessment information, but also contribute to it.

How can I contribute to my child's assessment information?

Talk to your child's teacher about your interest. You may be able to contribute documentation such as photographs, home videos, artwork, or medical records. The goal is for the documentation to support ratings of your child's abilities and to guide instruction, particularly in areas listed on his/her IEP.

How often will I get a report of my child’s progress on IASEP?

Accountability standards dictate that progress reports for students receiving special education be made at the same times as for the general student population. In Indiana, this currently is for students in grades 3, 6, 8 and 10. Thus, you should expect to receive an IASEP Student Report if your child is in grades 3, 6, 8, or 10.

For additional information, please contact us at IASEP by e-mail to mfisher@purdue.edu or telephone at (765)494-0552.