Choice Weekly Update
May 8, 2020
Student Residences (SR) Data Collection - Collecting All Student Addresses for Family Assistance Benefit
IDOE is supporting Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) and their work with the federally funded Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) Program. Indiana families qualifying for Free and Reduced Price meals are eligible under this program to receive direct assistance. This assistance will be based on the number of school days missed and the number of school-aged children in the household.
In order for these benefits (approximately $300/student) to be released to families, IDOE is collecting all student addresses from schools. The data should be reported in the STN Application Center in the Student Residence Collection. The window to submit the data will closes today, May 8. Schools should include all students enrolled in the school when submitting the data.
Using these addresses, FSSA will be able to distribute the funds to qualified Hoosier families. Please contact the STN Support Team with any questions. A template for creating the data file has been created and can be found here. For additional information, the data layout and template have been posted in the Nonpublic School Community in Moodle.
May Regional Meetings
Due to COVID-19, the in-person regional meetings for May were cancelled. The information will be recorded and posted in this newsletter and in the Nonpublic School Community in Moodle.
Choice School Applications
In order to participate in the 2020-2021 Choice Scholarship Program, a school application must be submitted. The Choice School Application Packet should be completed and attached with all required information. The complete file should be submitted as a single pdf to ChoiceSchool@doe.in.gov. The deadline to apply is September 1.
Choice Student Applications
Please continue to be conscientious when submitting the student information on student applications. Review carefully the Summary Sign Off Form and make any changes. The deadline to submit student applications is September 1. The Student Folder Checklist was created to assist with collecting required documentation for student Choice folders.
May #INspirEDgrants S’More News Letter is available, click here.
Updated Guidance and Formula to Generate Equitable Share for Nonpublic Schools under CARES Act
On April 30, 2020, USDE released updated information regarding how to calculate the equitable share formula for non-public schools. This represents a change from what IDOE has shared previously. Please see this memo for more information.
CARES Act Landing Page
IDOE will be placing CARES Act Resources on its new landing page, which can be accessed from the General Grants landing page. Click the link, to view past & future webinars of the CARES Act 4-part Webinar series, the next one will be held Thurs. May 7th at 1:00 p.m. EST.
Corporation Amendments for 2020-2021
The process for changing grade configurations, adding a school, closing a school, and renaming a school opens today, May 1. Please see the Corporation Amendment memo in the School Accountability and Accreditation Community for more information.
Submission of 2020 GR
Since some graduation requirements have been waived for the 2020 cohort graduating during the 2020 school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some changes were necessary to the GR. The validation that checks that students who are being reported with a non-waiver diploma has been removed for students in the 2020 cohort graduating during the 2020 school year. Therefore, all 2020 cohort students graduating in the 2020 school year should be reported with a non-waiver diploma. If they met a graduation pathway, then that can be reported. Please note that validations on graduation pathways data (i.e. cross-referencing with the CTE data) are still in place. The GR layout has been updated to reflect these changes.
Updating Contact Information
Contact information should now be updated using the LINK system. Data Security Coordinators should have received an email about this earlier this month. Please direct questions to link@doe.in.gov.
Update to the Three Year Review Process for Students with No Mode of Communication (NMC)
The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) updated guidance regarding the Three Year Review Process for Students with NMC due to the COVID-19 Waiver. Please note that IDOE will not complete this review in 2020. For more information, please refer to this memo.
COVID-19 Updates
Complete information related to COVID-19 is updated regularly here. The COVID-19 Impact on Schools FAQ was updated to include items 45, 46, and 47 on April 17. These items provide information regarding Curricular Material guidance, vision/hearing screenings, and risks associated with preparing and distributing paper-based educational packets.
Student Residence (SR) - Required Reporting
Student Residence (DOE-SR) report opened Friday, April 24, and will close Friday, May 8 at 4:00 p.m. EDT.
IDOE is supporting FSSA and their work with the federally funded Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) Program. Indiana families qualifying for Free and Reduced Price meals are eligible under this program to receive direct assistance. This assistance will be based on the number of school days missed and the number of school-aged children in the household.
In order for these benefits (approximately $300/student) to be released to families, IDOE is collecting all student addresses from schools. Schools are required to submit all student addresses to IDOE through the STN Application Center. Using these addresses, FSSA will be able to distribute these funds to qualified Hoosier families. For questions about submitting this data to IDOE please contact the STN support team with a ticket HERE.
This report is a required report for all Indiana schools and all grade levels. The Student Residence layout and template are posted to the Data Reporting Data Layouts page.
Student Residence (SR) Reporting Notes
- PO Box address - The issue causing SR records to fail has been resolved. At this time all schools may resubmit SR records for students with a P O Box address.
- Missing House Number – check your data to ensure that a house number has been included in the address if a message is received indicating that a street or road is not valid. For example, “Sharkey Rd" is not valid.
- County Road Addresses – reporting a county road address must be in an abbreviated form. Suggestion: abbreviate County Road to “CR”, spell out directional such as “North” or “No”. The address cannot be more than 30 characters.
NEW: Reporting SR Data for Students in Residential Facility
FSSA provides the following guidance: We would NOT want to capture these individuals at all for P-EBT. The purpose of P-EBT is to provide additional food assistance to families whose children are normally receiving food assistance via free or reduced lunch while attending
school. Children in a residential setting are having their nutritional needs met.
NEW: SR Signoff Functionality Unavailable
While the SR layout provides guidance that signoff for SR will be available, be advised that this functionality is not currently working. If you have verified using the Data Transfer page results that the count of students reported is accurate, then you may consider SR reporting complete.
NEW: Utilizing Data Reporting Templates
We have provided as a convenience, Excel Templates for most data reports that are required. Note that in order to utilize these templates, the user must first download the Excel document to their local computer. After that task is completed, data may be added to the spreadsheet to prepare for data transfer.
NEW: DOE-LE Federal Flexibility
There have been several asking why the LE data is still required even though assessments are cancelled for spring 2020. See statement from accountability below.
In federal accountability, the students who are reported in a given year are not included in proficiency or growth in English/Language Arts. The next school year, those same students are not counted toward proficiency, but are included in growth. Therefore, assuming that the assessments are given in the 2020-2021 school year, we will need to know which students should not be counted toward proficiency because they are in Year 2 of the Federal Flexibility.
Data Exchange System Implementation
IDOE will begin implementation of the Data Exchange System in the upcoming 2020-2021 school year. IDOE will collect the Non-Certified Employees (NE), Attendance (AT), and Calendar (CL) information via Data Exchange next year. Please read this memo for more information. IDOE is actively working with interested Student Information System (SIS) Vendors to become Indiana Ed-Fi Certified. A list of SIS Vendors and where they are at in the IDOE process is located on the Data Exchange Website in the Data Exchange for Schools section. Questions can be directed to dataexchange@doe.in.gov.
LINK Portal: An Update
IDOE has updated the Security Access tool within the LINK Portal with new features, which allow the Data Security Coordinators at each organization to set staff types (roles) for the LINK portal. We are asking all educational organizations’ security coordinators to update the Key Contact staff types for their organizations. Collecting, obtaining, and maintaining these critical business contacts, now known as “Key Contacts” is important in IDOE’s effort to streamline communication processes. More information on the LINK Portal as well as instructions for setting the Key Contact staff types are located on the Unified Access Website. Questions can be directed to link@doe.in.gov.
End-of-Year Reporting News
- CC 2020 (Course Completion) Layout v04.09.20 - posted April 9 with new Course Completion Status code 4=Incomplete to report students that were not able to complete course work due to COVID-19.
- A new CE-CP-CC template has also been posted to allow for new Completion Status code 4.
- GR 2020 (Graduate) Layout v04.09.20 - posted April 22. Updated graduate flexibility, for 2020 Cohort graduates ONLY, in response to Governor Holcomb’s Executive Order 2020-16 approved by SBOE and Dr. McCormick. See field #4 guidance on page 4 of the layout. 2020 cohort graduates may only be reported with non-waiver diploma designations.
- FAQ for Graduation Flexibility can be found here .
- DOE-TA 2020 (Testing Accommodations) Canceled - since assessments for 2020 have been cancelled there is no need to report accommodations data. This report has been closed in the Application Center.
- DOE Online Calendars - be sure to update school calendars as soon as your corporation has determined how to finish out the school year. See Calendars/End of Year section in FAQ copied below for guidance in completing calendars.
Are you Actively Working on Graduate Data? INTERS Report Available
If Graduate (GR) Postsecondary Ready Competencies codes 05 (State and Industry recognized Credential or Certification) or 07 (Career-Technical Educator Concentrator) are reported, all courses taken to satisfy reporting these codes must have been reported to INTERS.
- Find the INTERs report in the Application Center > Data Verification > Reports > Graduate > INTERS reported.
Reporting Guidance for “Early” Graduates
Students should not be exited on RT/EM with code 34 (Early Graduate) unless they have met ALL graduation requirements, including passing the Graduation Qualifying Exams, or meeting a Graduation Pathway. Students who have completed their credit requirements only and are no longer enrolled and attending are not considered early graduates. These students would be considered dropouts since they are no longer attending classes and have not completed all their graduation requirements. These students should be exited on RT/EM with an appropriate dropout exit code until they have completed their Graduation Qualifying Exams (GQE) or Graduation Pathway. Upon completion of the GQE or Pathway the exit code may then be updated to code 34 (Early Graduate). Students no longer enrolled and attending but still need to be available in TIDE for ISTEP+ Grade 10 re-test must be provided to the department. Please contact the Office of Student Assessments for assistance in providing the required information needed.
New: Updated and Expanded Flexibility for Graduation
The Flexibility from Indiana Graduation Requirements in Response to COVID-19 guidance document applies to the spring/summer 2020 graduation cohort and to students in prior cohorts who were on track to graduate in the spring/summer of 2020 pursuant to said guidance. This expands the flexibility to include fifth-year seniors and adult education
students . Please contact Robin Leclaire with questions.
REPORTS CURRENTLY OPEN
The data layouts and templates are posted in the Data Layout Resource in the Nonpublic Schools Community. Please be sure to download the most recent version when creating your data file.
- DOE IR 2020 (IREAD3 Exemption) - closes June 30 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
- DOE-SR 2020 (Student Residence) - closes May 8 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
- DOE-CE 2020 Period 2 (Certified Employee) - closes June 30 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
- DOE-CP 2020 Period 2 (Certified Position) - closes June 30 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
- DOE-CC 2020 Period 2 (Course Completion) - closes June 30 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
- DOE-AT 2020 (Attendance) - closes June 30 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
- DOE-LE 2020 (Federal Flexibility) - closes June 30 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
- DOE-GR 2020 (Graduate) - closes October 5 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
Report Opening Soon
- DOE-TI 2020 (Title I) - opens July 6
- DOE-DT 2020 (Dual Credit) - opens July 6
Help US Help YOU
Data Reporting Support Ticket :
- To contact STN support HelpDesk, click this LINK to create a work order. Please provide correct email address and phone number in the work order.
- Data Reporting Support is also available by phone at 317.232.0808
Choice Scholarship Program Contacts
Assistant Director of Nonpublic Schools
Senior Choice Specialist
Choice Specialist
Senior Support Choice Specialist
Email: choiceschool@doe.in.gov
Website: doe.in.gov/choice
Location: 115 West Washington Street, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Phone: 317-233-2200