Over the past four years, more than two-thirds of Virginia’s public school divisions (almost 2000 teachers, over 30,000 students) have used the VKRP system. We have listened to numerous teachers through observations, focus groups, and feedback surveys and while we can’t meet every individual preference, the team at VKRP is pressing forward with goals that are most common among users. One such goal is the development of growth assessments for “spring” (end of school year).
Over 40 school divisions have kindly volunteered to help us in our quest by piloting the new spring system. The goals for the spring pilot include understanding usability, testing the online system, and as always, obtaining feedback from teachers and other users! The spring pilot will occur during April and May of 2019, so if your division is participating then you have likely heard or will hear soon about it from your division or school leader(s).
For the spring version of the VKRP, many aspects of the program will remain the same:
- Social Skills and Self-Regulation will be assessed using the CBRS – this tool has been used with success from beginning of pre-K into first grade.
- Math will remain a one-on-one direct assessment taking approximately 20-25 minutes per student. Bear and his friends return in the spring assessment with different “games” more suitable for end of kindergarten and beyond math skills.
- Reports will be provided at the classroom and student-level. Family Reports will continue to be available, along with family resources that target skills for the beginning of first grade.
- Teacher resources will be available and linked from reports, just as they were in the fall.
Here are some things that will be different in the spring:
The spring version of the EMAS will contain items ranging in difficulty in order to assess a wider range in students’ skills! There will also be a NEW KIT featuring a flipbook easel, shape manipulatives, and patterning cards.
- Grade-appropriate benchmarks will be provided for math, self-regulation, and social skills, along with new “scaled scores” to help in measuring mathematics growth from fall to spring.
- Additional reports that track growth are in development, we hope to launch in May for pilot participants to experience and provide feedback.
There is a NEW VKRP Landing Page! In response to your helpful feedback, we have been working to make the landing page more intuitive and user-friendly.
- NEW Online Training Modules will be available! Again, in response to your feedback, our Instructional Design colleagues have been working to create a lean online training experience with interactive modules, a full assessment demo of the new EMAS, and links to the VKRP Program Manual and other helpful documents.
With growth comes changes!
In order to program all of these wonderful features into the current VKRP system, we have been closing sections of the VKRP webpage. Now, we will need to close the entire VKRP web portal on April 1, 2019. When the system re-opens on April 9 – only spring pilot teachers and divisions will be able to access the VKRP. We apologize for the inconvenience, but hang tight! On May 28th, once the spring pilot window has closed and some adjustments have been made, the new VKRP Landing Page, Training Modules, and Practice Assessments will be available to everyone. We realize some of you will be out of school by then (Congrats!), but the system will be here waiting when you return in late summer.
Besides being down for a brief period in July, the VKRP online training, videos, and practice assessments will be accessible through your PALS login from May 28th into the fall. When you return in the fall, you will receive your NEW VKRP BOX (kit) with even more new features, but let’s save that for August.
We are SO EXCITED for this next leg of our journey, and so grateful for:
- The numerous teachers, students, and administrators who allowed us to visit their classrooms this year in creating and testing the new EMAS versions and filming for the new training modules!
- Our spring pilot group- 48 divisions and almost 800 teachers who will help us make sure the spring assessments become a reality.
- Every teacher, administrator, leader who has provided feedback to get us to this point!
More questions? VKRP provides support via the online chat feature when you are in the system, via email vkrp@virginia.edu, and via toll free 866-301-8278 ext. 1
