Smarter Balanced Placement Agreement & Bridge Courses:
Fall 2015 Update for System Groups
Bill Moore, Director K-12 Partnerships, bmoore@sbctc.edu
360-704-4346
Smarter Balanced placement agreement implementation
 In collaboration with OSPI and WSAC we produced a higher education-focused informational flier that has been distributed to districts as material to include when they provide the formal
Smarter Balanced score report to parents and students (document can be viewed and downloaded here: http://bit.ly/1FLEdV6
 Modifications in the formal placement agreement have been made and approved by the
Instruction Commission (July 2015), based on new information and clarifying discussions with the system policy and implementation work groups in spring and summer. The updated agreement can be found here: https://c2cwa.wordpress.com/final-sbac-agreement_wa/
Fall 2015 HS seniors (juniors, with English scores only) interested in enrolling in Running Start courses for first time can use spring 2015 Smarter
Balanced scores for placement
Students will need to provide score report to college to qualify
For the current academic year the only students eligible to use their Smarter Balanced scores for placement are the small number of students interested in using level 3 or 4 scores to place into entrylevel college English or math courses as Running Start students. The chart below shows the scores set for the Smarter Balanced achievement levels as referenced in the placement agreement.
High School Smarter Balanced Score Achievement Levels
(see http://www.smarterbalanced.org/achievement-levels/ for details)
Level Math English
Language Arts
2681+ 4
3
2
1
2718+
2628-2717
2543-2627
<2543
2583-2681
2493-2582
<2492
By December
2015
Make decisions about assessment administration issues with Running
Start students for Spring 2016
Will convene a small work group to meet with OSPI staff and make recommendations based on effective local strategies used in spring 2015
I’ve met with staff from OSPI to discuss the issue of minimizing the disruption involved in having
Running Start students go back to their high schools to take the high school assessment. This issue came up last spring right before the testing window so we scrambled to get some guidance out to the

colleges and to school districts; now we’re trying to assess and promote the local strategies that seemed to be most effective last spring. We will be arranging a conference call for a small system work group in the fall to consider options and plans for spring 2016.
By April 2016 Make decisions about score reporting process and structure for
HS graduates entering college in
Fall 2016
Default option will be “hand-carry” process for students; goal is to make score release authorization and access more automated and easier for both students and college staff; will need to review with cross-sector data reporting work group—include RPC, registrars, ctcLink, …
OSPI continues to work with ERDC, in consultation with Smarter Balanced and other states in the consortium, to develop a process that will be both manageable and useful to higher education in terms of sharing the scores electronically; there are potentially both legal and logistical challenges to address, but I anticipate we’ll have a smoother process in place by spring when we should start to see more students actually want to use the agreement. For now, though, the default process will be for students to hand-carry or provide their own score report to the receiving institution when they go to take a placement test, so that is the information being communicated to students and school staff
(counselors, teachers, etc.).
Bridge to College courses (math and English)
 The community and technical college system Smarter Balanced placement agreement includes an opportunity for students scoring in level 2 (below college-ready) to successfully complete (B or better) a senior year “transition” course and qualify for the same placement agreement as if they had scored in level 3. Thanks to a grant from College Spark Washington we are collaborating with OSPI to implement these courses at over 100 schools across the state in
2015-16. Close to 225 teachers are currently teaching the courses (slightly more math than
English), supported by a professional learning structure led by SBCTC and OSPI.
 We just launched a new web site to provide information about the courses to educators, students and the general public: http://bridgetocollegecourses.org/
 We will be recruiting a new cohort of schools for 2016-17, so if you know of schools in your area who might be interested but aren’t currently offering the courses, please direct them to the web site above or to the OSPI web page on the courses: http://www.k12.wa.us/CurriculumInstruct/BridgetoCollege