Agenda Item
a. Approval of Renewal of Renaissance Products and Services: Illuminate DnA (Not to exceed $750,000)
Summary: Presented by:
Dr. Markisha Mitchell, Chief of Accountability & Continuous Improvement
Request: It is requested that the Board of Education approve the renewal of Renaissance: Illuminate DnA in an amount not to exceed $750,000 for SY 2024-2025.
The requested purchase is a testing expenditure that does not require bid per the District’s Purchasing Board Policy (DJE).
Why: This solution supports the tenets of all Strategic Goal areas, but in particular, Goal Area 1: Student Success with Equity and Access by actualizing the following performance objectives:
Improve student mastery of learning standards.
Provide academically rigorous courses and pathways.
Increase graduation rate.
Renaissance’s Illuminate Education is an assessment (DnA) platform with extensive academic content aligned to the Georgia Standards of Excellence with professionally designed assessments and reports that inform district, school, classroom, and student-level data.
The Illuminate Education DnA platform provides insightful district information around academic data with tools and reports to inform standards-based decision making. The data available through the platform has multiple benefits for District Leaders, Curriculum Leaders, and Teacher Leaders.
Through Illuminate Education, schools and teachers can quickly build and administer common assessments with instant access to results, including standards analysis, most commonly missed items, and subgroup analysis. The district also utilizes multiple data points from the assessment platform to design system-wide professional learning.
Through the renewal of Renaissance Illuminate Education for SY 2024-2025, DeKalb schools will continue to:
Design common and formative assessments
Analyze classroom, district, and state-level data.
Generate reports utilizing multiple academic data sources.
Utilize assessment item banks for remediation, acceleration, and professional development.
Inform instructional practices and school turnaround efforts at the local and district level.
Administer DeKalb’s Benchmark Assessments.
Details: This proposed budget item is requesting funds not to exceed $750,000.00 to cover the costs associated with the purchase of the Renaissance Illuminate Education Assessment Platform and professional learning services.
Through the Illuminate Assessment platform, DCSD K-12 educators will have access to over 100,000 Formative, Common, and Benchmark assessment items. The test items have the following attributes:
Aligned to Georgia Standards of Excellence in all four content areas: English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
Multiple item types - selected response, constructed response and extended response (which simulates the GADOE Milestones Assessments)
Flexible delivery - items in Microsoft Office Word; passages in PDF; and images in JPEG
Varying levels of complexity- Depth of Knowledge: DOK 1 - 20%, DOK 2 - 60% and DOK 3 - 20%
English Language Arts items will be associated with passages that reflect readability and text complexity appropriate to the grade level.
The Illuminate platform includes the following features necessary to administer required formative, common, and benchmark assessments in tandem with DeKalb’s curriculum:
Document camera scanning for easy and instant assessment scoring
Traditional and standard-based grade books and report cards
Online testing, proctoring, monitoring, and dashboards to provide instant performance feedback
Reporting that provides the big picture around effective instructional practices, direction for differentiated instruction, and item analysis to pinpoint student misconceptions
The online portal allows digital access to students and parents to get real-time performance feedback.
Usage Data SY2021-SY2024
Level
# of Assessments Created
# of Assessments Created
# of Assessments Created
# of Assessments Created
2020-2021
2021-2022
2022-2023
2023-2024
Elementary
23,251
30,298
30,526
28,571
Middle
7,424
10,550
10,555
10,374
High
25,445
15,284
14,069
14,235
The assessments include district benchmark assessments, common formative assessments, and summative assessments for all grade bands (elementary, middle and high). The Illuminate tool proved to be an invaluable resource for DCSD students and staff.
Financial impact: The financial impact is an amount, not to exceed, $750,000 for FY25.
The purchase amount will be paid using general funds budgeted to the Division of Accountability and Continuous Improvement, Department of Assessment Administration, charge code: 100.2210.553200.00011.7540.9990.8010.030.0000
Contact: Dr. Markisha Mitchell, Chief of Accountability & Continuous Improvement, Division of Accountability & Continuous Improvement, 678.676.0300
Dr. Felicia G. Rhone, Director, Assessment Administration, Division of Accountability & Continuous Improvement, 678.676.0300
Effective: July 2024
Status: Approved by General Counsel