Assessment Spotlight, Issue 284

Focusing on the CAASPP System and English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California’s other statewide assessments. For questions related to test administration, coordination, and trainings, visit the CAASPP and ELPAC website .

California Educator Reporting System Trainings Starting Soon

Space is still available for the 2024–25 Introduction to the California Educator Reporting System (CERS) online training. Two types of trainings will be offered. Each training is designed for specific audiences. The sessions will include opportunities for attendees to practice using various features of CERS.

Introduction to CERS for Test Coordinators and Administrators

This three-hour online training is designed for staff who have a local educational agency (LEA) or site coordinator role in the Test Operations Management System and are responsible for managing access to CERS for other LEA staff members.

The following training session dates are available:

• Thursday, July 25, 2024, 8:30‒11:30 a.m.
• Tuesday, October 8, 2024, 8:30‒11:30 a.m.

Register for Introduction to CERS for Test Coordinators and Administrators .

Introduction to CERS for Teachers

This two-hour online training is designed for LEA staff who have or will have access to CERS assessment results, i.e., teachers who have students rostered in the system, and other LEA staff who are interested in using CERS. The following training session dates are available:

• Tuesday, August 13, 2024, 1‒3 p.m.
• Tuesday, October 8, 2024, 3:30‒5:30 p.m.

Register for the Introduction to CERS for Teachers .

If you have any questions about these training opportunities, please contact Nikki Antonovich, Coordinator, Sacramento County Office of Education at caaspp@scoe.net.

July’s Featured Resource in Tools for Teachers—How a Picture Tells a Story

High school English language arts teachers—This month’s featured resource can help your students with the daunting task of developing the characters, conflict, and plot of a narrative while simultaneously setting tone and mood. How a Picture Tells a Story (account required) provides scaffolded support for overcoming the first hurdles in storytelling by stimulating creativity through photographs and collaboration.

Like all resources in Tools for Teachers, this resource comes with embedded formative assessment and accessibility strategies that teachers can use to support and assess student learning. For example, the formative assessment strategy Notice/Wonder has students look at a photograph and answer the questions, “What do we notice?” and “What do we wonder?” The teacher facilitates whole-class collaboration to reach consensus in determining a character and plot based on a photograph as students contribute ideas and fill in a plot diagram that is projected for all. After teacher modeling and collaborative activities, a second photograph is given to students to use individually to write the beginning of a story using strong narrative elements.

This instructional resource is designed for high school students, but it is easily adaptable and especially relevant for students in lower grades who will be called upon to write narrative texts using non-fiction stimuli such as photographs and articles. To view this and other instructional resources, LEA staff need a Tools for Teachers account which can be obtained either through self-registration, described in the flyer, or through their LEA CAASPP or ELPAC coordinator.

To receive future CAASPP updates and notifications, subscribe to the CAASPP mailing list by sending a blank email message to subscribe-caaspp@mlist.cde.ca.gov. Are you a new subscriber? For previous Assessment Spotlight issues, visit the California Department of Education Assessment Spotlight web page.