The Wyoming Department of Education is seeking public comment on temporary changes to its federal accountability plan due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public comment is accepted from January 8-25, and a summary of the changes and a copy of the draft can be found by following the link here.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancelation of statewide assessments in the spring of 2020, however, Wyoming's accountability system requires multiple years of assessment data. With this in mind, some adjustments are necessary in order to meet the federal requirements for the 2020-21 school year because of this missing assessment data.

Wyoming plans to submit an addendum to its federal accountability plan, which would allow long-term goals to be pushed one year. The addendum would also allow Wyoming to not calculate measures for which there is not adequate data, not calculate overall scores for schools, and delay identification of low-performing schools for Comprehensive Support and Improvement for one year.

These temporary changes to Wyoming's ESSA plan do not waive the federal assessment requirements.

Comments can be submitted to the WDE through January 25, 2021 via an online survey, or by mail.

Two online public meetings will be offered, one at noon and another at 5 p.m. MST on January 14.

Anyone wishing to participate can register online here for the noon session and here for the 5 p.m. session.

Comments can be mailed to:
Wyoming Department of Education
Attn: Linda Finnerty
122 West 25th Street, Suite E200
Cheyenne, WY 82002
linda.finnerty@wyo.gov

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