Title I AYP Appeals 2010-2011
Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), a local educational agency must give
a school an opportunity to appeal its AYP determination if the school’s principal or a
majority of parents believe there is evidence that the determination is incorrect. Similarly,
before the district AYP determination is made public, a state educational agency must give
a school district an opportunity to appeal its AYP determination if there is sufficient
evidence that it is incorrect.
This document is intended to highlight the legislation that necessitates a review process,
establish procedures and timelines to be used during the process, and help clarify the
conditions under which a request for review may be filed.
Relevant text of Section 1116 of NCLB regarding school to district and district to state
reviews is presented below.
NCLB Legislation - School to District Requests
Sec. 1116
(2) (A) Identification – Before identifying an elementary or a secondary school for school
improvement under paragraphs (1) or (5) (A), for corrective action under paragraph (7), or restructuring
under paragraph (8), the local educational agency shall provide the school with an opportunity to review the
school-level data, including academic assessment data, on which the proposed identification is based.
(B)
Evidence – If the principal of a school proposed for identification under paragraph (1),
(5)(A), (7), or (8) believes, or a majority of the parents of the students enrolled in such school believe, that
the proposed identification is in error for statistical or other substantive reasons, the principal may provide
supporting evidence to the local educational agency, which shall consider that evidence before making a final
determination.
(C)
Final Determination – Not later than 30 days after a local educational agency provides the
school with an opportunity to review such school-level data, the local educational agency shall make public a
final determination on the status of the school with respect to the identification.
NCLB Legislation - District to State Requests
Sec. 1116 (3)
Identification of Local Educational Agency for Improvement – A State shall identify for
improvement a local educational agency that for 2 consecutive years, including the period immediately prior
to the date of enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, failed to make adequate yearly progress as
defined in the State’s plan under section 1111(b)(2).
(5)
Opportunity to Review and Present Evidence
(A)
Review - Before identifying a local educational agency for improvement under paragraph
(3) or corrective action under paragraph (10), a state educational agency shall provide the local educational
agency with an opportunity to review the data, including academic assessment data, on which the proposed
identification is based.
(B)
Evidence – If the local educational agency believes that the proposed identification is in
error for statistical or other substantive reasons, the agency may provide supporting evidence to the State
educational agency, which shall consider the evidence before making a final determination not later than 30
days after the State educational agency provides the local educational agency with an opportunity to review
such data under paragraph (A).
Office of Federal Program Administration, 2011
(6)
Notification to Parents – The State educational agency shall promptly provide to the
parents (in a format, and to the extent practicable, in a language the parents can understand) of each student
enrolled in a school served by the local educational agency identified for improvement, the results of the
review under paragraph (1) and , if the agency is identified for improvement, the reasons for that
identification and how the parents can participate in upgrading the quality of the local educational agency.
Review Process and Timeline – School to District Requests

Local educational agencies (LEAs) are to make, and notify schools of school AYP
determinations immediately following CDE’s release of data (approximately
August 2nd).

If the principal of a school, or the majority of parents of children enrolled in a
school, believe that the school’s AYP determination made by the district is
incorrect, the determination may be appealed to the LEA. Appeal determinations
must be final 30 days after the district received data from the state (September 2nd).
The appeal changes must be reflected in the data reported to the State through the
Automated Data Exchange.

LEAs must collaborate with schools to ensure that the opportunity for review is
adequate and implemented in a manner consistent with the NCLB legislation and
the conditions outlined below.

Districts must maintain a written record of AYP appeals that includes:
1. The signature of the Superintendent indicating his or her support of the appeal.
2. Data presented in a format that demonstrates how the AYP determination or
individual targets were incorrect and how the target(s) were met.
3. A narrative explaining the appeal, in what way the AYP determination
regarding the requirement(s) in question was incorrect, and how the
requirement has been reached.
4. Such documentation as necessary to demonstrate that the appeals process was
administered in a manner consistent with the NCLB legislation and the
conditions set forth by CDE. These records are subject to future audit by CDE
and the USDE.

Schools must send public school choice notifications to parents of children enrolled
in schools on Improvement (if applicable to the school’s Improvement status) at
least 14 days before the first day of school.

LEAs must report to the public on school and district AYP determinations no later
than December 31st (or the release of the district’s annual report).
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Review Process and Timeline – District to State Requests

CDE will make district AYP determinations around August 2nd.

If the Superintendent believes that the district’s AYP determination made by the
State is incorrect, the determination must be appealed to CDE by August 19th.

Appeals must include:
1. The signature of the Superintendent indicating his or her support of the appeal.
2. Data presented in a format that demonstrates how the AYP determination or
individual targets were incorrect and how the target(s) were met. This includes
a list of student SASIDs if specific student records are involved.
3. A narrative explaining the appeal, in what way the AYP determination
regarding the requirement(s) in question was incorrect, and how the
requirement has been reached.
4. A print-out of the district’s AYP results from the Automated Data Exchange,
with the specific data to be changed noted and highlighted.
Please use the attached forms as guidelines for submitting appeals.

District appeals should be submitted via e-mail to: morganstern_d@cde.state.co.us.
Or mailed to: Colorado Department of Education
Office of Federal Program Administration
c/o Donna Morganstern
1560 Broadway, Suite 1450
Denver, CO 80202

CDE will ensure that the opportunity for review is adequate and implemented in a
manner consistent with the NCLB legislation and the conditions outlined below.

CDE will resolve all district appeals by September 23rd, 2011.

CDE will publicize district AYP determinations soon after. CDE also will work
with the district to notify parents about the district’s Improvement status if the
district is placed, or remains, on Program Improvement or Corrective Action as a
result of AYP determinations.
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Conditions of School and District Requests for Review
Under NCLB, the definition of adequate yearly progress used to make AYP determinations
must be “the same for all schools and local educational agencies in the state” (Sec. 1111
(G)(ii). CDE is charged with ensuring that adequate yearly progress determinations are
made in a uniform and consistent manner from school to school and district to district.
NCLB does allow schools and districts to request a review of the AYP evidence based on
“statistical error or other substantive reasons.” The following sections outline some basic
conditions that must be met in making a request for review, some conditions under which a
request for review may be made, and some conditions under which a request for review
may not be made. Of course, it is impossible to anticipate all of the potential reasons for a
review request. However, CDE has tried to address those issues that are most likely to be
raised during the AYP determination process. If you have further questions about
allowable appeals, please contact Donna Morganstern at morganstern_d@cde.state.co.us or
303-866-6209.
Basic Conditions of Requests for AYP Review
1. Before a request for review is considered, the district Superintendent must
indicate support for the request in writing.
All school or district requests for review must be accompanied by the Superintendent’s
signature indicating that s/he supports the request.
2. It is the responsibility of the school or district making the request to demonstrate
that the overall determination or individual target determinations were incorrect.
For example, if a school or a district is appealing the State’s determination that it failed to
make AYP because its economically disadvantaged students did not reach the elementary
reading proficiency target, the school or district must cite the economically disadvantaged
student data used to identify the school/district as not having made AYP, describe or
demonstrate how the original data were incorrect or misleading, and present the revised
data set that supports a reversal of the original determination.
Districts will have access to the individual student records included in all of the AYP
calculations (participation, performance, safe harbor, matched safe harbor, and other
indicator at the school and district levels) through the CEDAR2 system. This information
will help districts clearly identify the data used to make the AYP determinations and thus
can be used to help demonstrate the need for an appeal.
For district appeals, all required data must be submitted by the due date. It delays the
entire process when CDE needs to go back to districts for more information on their
appeals. If you need assistance determining what data you need to submit, please contact
Donna Morganstern (morganstern_d@cde.state.co.us) before August 19th.
Office of Federal Program Administration, 2011
Districts must maintain written records of AYP school reviews that include the reason for
the review, pre- and post-data, and the final determination. The district must be able to
document that the review process was administered in a manner consistent with NCLB
legislation and the conditions set forth by CDE. These records are subject to future
monitoring and audit by CDE and the USDE.
3. Requests for review will be considered if the evidence provided supports the claim
that all AYP conditions were met and the preliminary determination is incorrect OR
individual missed targets actually were met, even if the overall determination does
not change.
In some cases, a school or district may be able to demonstrate that a target that was
preliminarily identified as unmet actually has been reached. CDE will accept appeals
based on single targets, even if the appeal does not change the overall AYP determination.
4. No changes or updates will be made to the student biographical data housed in
CDE’s data warehouse as a result of the review process.
Review results will not alter baseline and subsequent year student-level data that are
housed in CDE’s data warehouse. However, the State and LEAs must maintain records of
successful and unsuccessful reviews that may inform AYP determinations and reviews of
determinations in subsequent years.
5. Districts must have participated in the SOA/SBD process to be eligible to appeal
school and district determinations.
If a district did not participate in SOA/SBD, it is not eligible to appeal AYP
determinations. SOA/SBD is an integral part of the process to ensure clean data for
making accurate AYP determinations.
Acceptable Grounds for Requests for AYP Review
6. Requests for review may be made on the basis of statistical error.
7. Requests for review may be made on grounds of including more students.
CDE allows districts and schools to widen the definition of IEP students through the
appeals process. Students exited from IEPs during the 2010-2011 school year, or the
2008-2009 and 2007-2008 school years, may be included in the IEP disaggregated group.
However, all exited students would need to be included, not just some of them.
Additionally, if this appeal is used to make safe harbor or matched safe harbor targets,
prior year counts must be updated to include the exited students as well, for the same
number of years (i.e. adding exited students from the past two years for meeting 2011 safe
harbor or matched safe harbor targets also necessitates inclusion of exited students for two
years prior to 2010, meaning you need to go back for 3 years of data). This appeal does
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not allow inclusion of all students in performance calculations--only those who have been
continuously enrolled in the school/district for 12 months or more.
8. A request for review may be made if a school or district fails to meet participation
rate targets in 2010-2011 if by calculating the participation rate with 2009-2010 (2year rate), or with 2010-2011, 2009-2010 and 2008-2009 (3-year rate), the 95% target
is reached.
The 2- and 3-year participation rates will be calculated automatically for districts and
displayed in ADE, if necessary. However, CDE will use original participation data for
those years. If districts needed to appeal students in or out of those prior calculations, you
may still need to submit an appeal to average.
9. A request for review may be made if students were unable to test due to emergency
medical conditions.
For students who have suffered significant medical emergencies which prevent them from
attending school and participating in the assessment during the entire testing window,
(including make-up dates), a district may request that they be removed from participation
calculations entirely (denominator and numerator). Documentation that such students have
been determined by a medical practitioner to be incapacitated to the extent they are unable
to participate in the appropriate State assessment must be included with the appeal.
10. A request for review may be made if the school or district does not make the
reading participation rate targets due to the inclusion of newly arrived English
language learners.
This appeal applies only to NEP or LEP students who have been enrolled in US schools for
less than 1 year (Date in U.S. on or after 3/09/10) and were given the English CSAP or
CSAPA reading and received a No Score. For AYP calculations this year, students who
meet the above criteria, and have an overall score on CELA will be included as reading
participants. Districts and schools may appeal to include as participants students who
entered the U.S. after the CELA window closed, but before CSAP, if they were given the
CELA screener or another English language proficiency assessment.
This appeal does not apply to math participation. In order to be counted as a participant for
math, students must have a valid score on either the CSAP or CSAPA.
11. If a district exceeded the 1% proficient cap on CSAPA, and the randomly
converted scores caused the district not to make AYP, or an AYP target, the district
may appeal to exceed the 1% cap, if it can support the students tested with CSAPA
with the following information:
 Data demonstrating the incidence of students with the most significant cognitive
disabilities, such as December Count information (i.e. number of students with a
disability label of SLIC, multiple, autism, deaf/blind, etc.).
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 Data demonstrating the number and percent of students topping out of CSAPA, as
defined by the following:
o For reading- the number and percent of students scoring Novice, with all
Level of Independence scores of 4.
o For math- the number and percent of students scoring Novice, with all
Level of Independence scores of 4.
 An explanation for why more than 1% of all students in the district require the alternate
assessment.
 Documentation of:
1. The determination of eligibility for CSAPA by the IEP team. Please include all
factors of consideration besides the presence of a severe cognitive disability.
2. Local training for IEP teams around eligibility guidelines for CSAPA.
3. Parent notification that their child will be assessed through the CSAPA and
information about and implications of taking this assessment.
4. Number of students with IEPs taking the general assessment with and without
accommodations and the percentage taking the alternate.
5. District professional development efforts around the appropriate use of
accommodations.
6. Provision of a curriculum and instruction based on expanded benchmarks for
students taking the CSAPA (i.e., standards-driven goals and objectives).
Districts will be notified if their data show an excess of 1% of all CSAP and CSAPA tested
students scoring proficient on the CSAPA. This appeal only applies to the district level as
schools are not held to the 1% proficiency cap.
12. Adjustments for miscoding of students.
If students’ biographical data have been miscoded, and the district went through the SBD
process, the district can (and should) update the data through the appeals process in ADE.
For example, if students were miscoded as continuous in school and/or district, this should
be fixed in ADE. Additionally, we have found that some students who were coded as
continuous in district did not actually have a test score from the prior year assigned to that
district. If CDE can find a test score for that student anywhere in the state, we are
including that record in matched safe harbor. But the district can appeal these miscoded
students out of performance, safe harbor and matched safe harbor (they need to be
appealed out of all of those calculations, not just one).
13. A request for review may be made based on the changes in the way race/ethnic
group is reported in 2011. These appeals only apply for the 2010-2011 school year, as
there will be two years of comparable data starting in the 2011-12 school year.
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a. If the 2011 Hispanic disaggregated group did not meet reading or math
performance targets, the school/district can appeal to include AYP 2010 data from
students coded Hispanic currently but not last year, for the purpose of calculating
safe harbor. If the school/district uses this appeal, then all students who currently
are coded as Hispanic but were not last year must be appealed back in. These
students will be included automatically for matched safe harbor.
b. A school/district may appeal students who marked themselves as belonging to two
or more non-Hispanic ethnic groups in 2011 back into their 2010 racial/ethnic
groups. However, to use this appeal, all students must be added back in, for all
targets. For example, students who considered themselves Asian in 2010 but
marked themselves as belonging to two or more groups in 2011 can be appealed
back into the Asian disaggregated group for AYP 2011, but they must be added
back in for calculating all targets, including participation and other indicator—not
just performance.
Unacceptable Grounds for a Request for Review
13. Requests for review may not be made based on measurement error inherent in
CSAP assessments.
For example, an appeal may not be made on the basis of the measurement error associated
with the advanced level of performance on a CSAP assessment.
14. Schools and districts may not request a review of AYP targets or the AYP
definition.
For example, a request for review may not be made on the grounds that the target for
middle school math proficiency is unreasonable for a specific disaggregated group.
AYP Appeals Assistant
Missed Target
Appeal Number that
Could Apply
12
13
8, 9
Any Target
Any race/ethnicity targets
Participation Targets
Reading Participation Targets (for ELLs or
related subgroups)
10
Targets for students with IEPs
7
Performance Targets
11 (district only)
Office of Federal Program Administration, 2011
Other Indicator- High School Graduation
Rate- IEP students
7
Other Indicator- Elementary or Middle LevelIEP students
7
Office of Federal Program Administration, 2011