State Education Department Announces Updated Resources for Every Student Succeeds Act Implementation

Updated resources are now available for schools and districts as they implement New York’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia announced today. The resources include a more user-friendly website that serves as a one-stop-shop of information for parents, educators and others. The website features guidance documents with a frequently asked questions component and informational videos on what ESSA requires and how it creates more opportunities for student success. Resources will be added and amended as they are completed.

“Educational equity is the most pressing issue that we face, and our ESSA plan contains strategies to improve equity and make schools welcoming environments for all students,” Board of Regents Chancellor Betty A. Rosa said. “As we begin the work of implementation, we are collaborating with districts to move ahead with these initiatives that are critical for educating students across the state, giving our children the best chance to succeed.”

“New York’s ESSA plan is committed to promoting a relationship of trust, cultural responsiveness, and respect between schools and families,” Commissioner Elia said. “A key aspect of that is parent and community involvement. With these improved tools, we are building on the work already being done with district and school leaders, teachers and other educators, and parents to increase opportunities for all students.”

New Website Features

Fundamentally, ESSA is about creating a set of interlocking strategies to promote educational equity by providing support to districts and schools as they work to ensure that every student succeeds. In order to help achieve this, NYSED has developed a series of helpful resources for educators and parents.

The first step in making sure have the tools they need was to create a new ESSA website that is more user-friendly, so materials can be found quickly and easily. The news resources posted on the website will provide schools and districts with tools to help implement ESSA. New resources on the website include:

• 17 guidance documents on both programmatic and fiscal topics to schools receiving federal funds from programs under ESSA;
• Fact sheets for parents and educators that summarize and explain the final ESSA plan available in 15 languages;
• Pre-recorded webinars that further explain changes to guidance documents and school requirements on such topics as Consolidated Applications for ESSA-Funded Programs and the helpful “Title Talk Tuesday” for districts receiving title funds;
• Information on school accountability designations, which will be updated with additional resources when new designations are announced next year;
• Information on equitable services for nonpublic schools;
• Resources for English language learners and Multilanguage learners and;
• Recent ESSA news.

A new brief informational video about the ESSA plan and its implementation is also now available. The parent-friendly video includes information on what ESSA requires and the changes that will occur. It shows how ESSA creates more opportunities for student success through a reduction in testing time, teacher preparedness, and parent and community involvement in the school improvement process. This video is available with captions in English and seven additional languages to increase accessibility. These languages are Spanish, French, Russian, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Arabic.

Additionally, the website features a helpful webinar for educators on the ESSA plan for Growth in English Language Proficiency (ELP). It focuses on the New York State English as a second language achievement test (NYSESLAT) and provides an overview of the steps to determine a school-level rating in ELP. The brief video discusses probability of students meeting growth targets and school benchmarks, among other topics administrators may find valuable.

NYSED is in the process of developing additional resources and these materials will be added as they are completed. NYSED will announce these additions through its social media channels and listservs.

ESSA is Equity

The final approved ESSA plan emphasizes fostering equity in education for New York’s students; expands measures for school support and accountability and student success; and requires school-level improvement plans for the lowest performing schools overall, as well as schools with the lowest performance for certain student populations. The plan also includes strategies for supporting the professional growth of educators and ensuring that all students, including English language learners/Multilingual learners, immigrant students, migratory youth, homeless youth, and neglected and delinquent youth, have access to a well-rounded, culturally responsive education that supports students’ academic and social-emotional development.

New York State is committed to ensuring that all students succeed and thrive in school no matter who they are, where they live, where they go to school, or where they come from. ESSA strategies to foster equity include to: address disparities in training for teachers to help them be effective in the classroom; provide students more access to rigorous high school coursework; make schools equally welcoming environments for all students; increase fiscal transparency in school building spending; and use multiple measures to allow students to demonstrate proficiency in state learning standards.

The ESSA plan expands measures for school support and accountability and student success and requires school-level improvement plans for the lowest performing schools overall as well as schools with the lowest performance for certain student populations. ESSA also provides states and LEAs with funding to provide additional support to certain groups of students as well as to schools that have been identified for additional support. The plan also includes strategies for supporting the professional growth of educators and ensuring that all students receive a culturally responsive education that supports their academic and social-emotional development.