Frequently Asked Questions on the Common Assessment for Department of Juvenile Justice Education Programs

Pursuant to rule 6A-6.05281(4)(b), Florida Administrative Code (F.A.C.), all students in DJJ prevention, residential, or day treatment programs who have not graduated from school or filed a notice of intent to terminate school enrollment shall be assessed on the department-selected common assessment within ten (10) school days of the student’s initial placement into a program. There is no specific timeline specified for the administration of the exit CA.

The Florida Common Assessment for Mathematics (CA Math) and the Florida Common Assessment for English Language Arts (CA ELA) are designed to benchmark student-level learning gains between entry and exit from a DJJ education program.

The CA System is managed by WIN Learning, the provider under contract with the Florida Department of Education to support the development and delivery of the common assessment.

DJJ residential programs - All students who have not graduated from school or filed a notice of intent to terminate school enrollment shall be administered the common assessment. The student must first be properly entered into the Juvenile Justice Information System (JJIS), assigned a JJIS DJJ identification number and assigned to a program in JJIS.

DJJ prevention and day treatment programs - All students who have been entered in JJIS/Prevention Web, assigned a DJJ identification number and assigned to a program in JJIS/Prevention Web.

A student placed in a DJJ program having already earned a State of Florida Standard High School Diploma, State of Florida Diploma (GED®), State of Florida High School Performance-Based Diploma or Certificate of Completion, or another state’s diploma is not required to take the entry or exit CA.

A student who takes the CA upon entry and earns a State of Florida Standard High School Diploma, State of Florida Diploma (GED®), State of Florida High School Performance-Based Diploma or Certificate of Completion, or another state’s diploma is not required to take the exit CA.

Students in detention centers are not required to be administered the common assessment.

The school district’s Juvenile Justice Education Manager (JJEM), the program’s lead educator or principal of record or designee may enable or disable proctor access to the CA System via an email request to customerservice@floridajjca.com. The request must include the first and last name, telephone number and email address of the proctor, and the individual submitting the request.

Student enrollment records are electronically created and automatically updated in the CA System the day after student information is entered or updated in JJIS by DJJ program case management. Students cannot be manually enrolled in the CA System.

The education provider at the DJJ program should contact the DJJ program case manager to enter or correct the student information in JJIS. To help expedite resolution, the DJJ program should also provide the name of the program, the name of the student and a brief description of the issue to WIN customer service at customerservice@floridajjca.com. The update will appear in the CA System one day after the change is made in JJIS/Prevention Web.

No. The student will need to be administered the common assessment when enrolled in a new DJJ program, even if the student transferred from another DJJ program.

Accommodations for the common assessment should be the same or similar to what the student typically uses in the classroom setting. Testing with accommodations must be documented in the student’s IEP or Section 504 Plan. The following are some examples of allowable accommodations for the common assessment:

• Oral Presentation:
  • CA Math – Directions, test questions and answer choices can be presented orally.
  • CA ELA – Directions, test questions and answer choices only can be presented orally.  Reading passages may not be presented orally.
• Extended time must be offered in accordance with the student’s IEP or Section 504 Plan. Extended time is not unlimited time. Extended time should align with the accommodation used regularly in the student’s classroom instruction and assessment activities.

Refer to the Administrator Guide for instructions on how to extend the time for assessments, change font sizes, magnify the screen and change color contrast.

For allowable accommodations questions, contact the juvenile justice education program director at 850-245-0983.

The “Exit and Discard” feature is used to exit a student out of an assessment due to a testing irregularity which would invalidate the testing results. In such a case, the entire assessment is deleted, and the dashboard will not indicate a partial score or attempt. No data will be maintained for this assessment if this feature is used. This feature should only be used in extreme cases, such as a major disruption in test administration (e.g., illness or system-wide power failure). If the “Exit and Discard” feature is used, the program must administer the assessment again to meet the assessment requirements.

The “Merge” feature can be accessed from the Review Student Scores tab and should be used to combine multiple records for the same student enrollment when the attendance between stays is 30 days or less. This feature merges the records to display one student record. This feature should be used when a student is temporarily placed in a DJJ detention center and returns to the program or when there is a new DJJ Program code in JJIS due to a program provider change. The JJEM is automatically granted permission to merge records and may delegate permission by submitting a request to customerservice@floridajjca.com.

The “Assessment Exemption” feature can be accessed from the Student Lookup tab and should be used when a student has earned a diploma and is exempt from the entry and/or exit assessment. This feature may be used before or after an entry or exit assessment has been assigned or administered.  Assessment exemption reasons include attainment of a standard high school diploma, performance-based diploma, State of Florida diploma (GED) or certificate of completion, and student is deceased. The JJEM is automatically granted permission to use the exemption feature and may delegate permission by submitting a request to customerservice@floridajjca.com.

• If two of the same assessments are administered on the same day, the highest score will be used for learning gains calculation.
• If two of the same assessments are administered in the same stay, the first entry assessment and last exit assessment will be used for learning gains calculation.
• At least six test questions must be answered to be a valid assessment.

As of July 1, 2022, the Common Assessment MATH and ELA are aligned to targeted Florida B.E.S.T. Standards required for graduation.

The CA Math is aligned to the Mathematics B.E.S.T. Standards for grades 6-8.

The CA ELA is aligned to the Language Arts Florida B.E.S.T. Standards for grades 7-9.

The CA System features a Summary Report for each test administration which can be downloaded as a PDF. Student performance will be reported as a raw score including information on how students performed on each content standard. The report will summarize student-specific assessment results including the number of items each student answered correctly or incorrectly by standard, instead of scale or achievement level scores. The assessment is the same for all grade levels and is a summative assessment, not a diagnostic assessment. This assessment does not provide a grade level equivalency score and should not be used for progress monitoring purposes.

• CA Reading/ELA Learning gains;
• CA Math Learning gains; and
• Data Integrity

Sufficient data for inclusion in the component exists when at least 10 students are eligible for inclusion in the calculation of the component.

• Denominator:
  • Eligible students who have a valid entry and a valid exit exam in the respective subject.
  • Students enrolled in a DJJ education program less than 40 days who have a valid entry and a valid exit exam in the respective subject.
• Numerator:
  • Students who are in the denominator who have demonstrated an improvement in the percentage of questions answered correctly on the exit exam compared to the entry exam.

The cohort for common assessment learning gains and data integrity is based on the program release date in Juvenile Justice Information System (JJIS).

• For policy, implementation and accommodations, contact the Bureau of School Improvement at 850-245-0900 or by email at Carla.Greene@fldoe.org or Joey.Nice@fldoe.org.
• For information about the accountability formula, contact the Bureau of Accountability and Reporting at 850-245-0411 or by email at Accountability@fldoe.org.
• For training and technical support, contact WIN Learning at 888-717-9461 or by email at customerservice@floridajjca.com.  

• Administrator Guide, System Overview, Remote Proctoring, Test Blueprints and Student Summary Report Samples can be accessed on the CA System at https://www.floridajjca.com/Resources/Index.
• Guide to Calculating DJJ Accountability Ratings