5.3 Assessment Partnerships with Families and Colleagues
Key Takeaways
- PECT 0002.8 scores whether you establish and sustain assessment partnerships with families and colleagues and communicate responsibly about performance and progress.
- Conferences should be two-way, strength-based, and concrete: work samples and simple graphs beat a pile of unexplained percentiles.
- Use qualified interpreters for families with limited English proficiency; do not use children as interpreters for confidential assessment conversations, and strip jargon from WIDA, CBM, and IEP language.
- Colleague partnerships mean bringing graphs and student work to the people who share responsibility — ESL teachers, special educators, previous teachers — under need-to-know FERPA rules, not lunchroom announcements.
- Never email identifiable student assessment data through unsecured personal accounts or group threads; use district-approved channels and share only what each partner needs.
5.3 Assessment Partnerships with Families and Colleagues
PECT lens: Objective 0002.8 asks for strategies to establish, develop, and sustain assessment partnerships with families and colleagues, and to communicate responsibly and effectively with students, families, and colleagues about performance and progress. A perfect graph that nobody can understand, or that is emailed unsafely, fails this objective.
Chapter 8 treats family systems and general communication. Chapter 9 treats broader colleague collaboration. Stay here on assessment talk: what the child can do, how we know, what we will teach next, and how we protect the child's identity while we say it.
Why assessment is a partnership, not a broadcast
Families see language, play, homework struggles, and after-school strengths that a 20-minute probe will miss. Colleagues see the child in specials, in ELD, in intervention, or last year. If you only announce a percentile, you are broadcasting. If you invite what others notice and align next steps, you are partnering.
Partnerships are sustained. One back-to-school night does not satisfy 0002.8. Regular, predictable contact — conference windows, a short work-sample folder sent home, a mid-intervention check with the ESL teacher — is the pattern the exam wants.
Communicating with families about performance and progress
Lead with strengths and evidence, then a gap, then a plan. Deficit-only lists (“can't, can't, can't”) shut families down and misrepresent the child. Strength-based is not dishonest: “Maya retells a familiar story with pictures and counts to 20 with objects. On weekly oral-reading probes, her trend is still below our aim for this measure. Next, we will practice blends in a small group, and here is a two-minute home game that uses the same skill.”
Bring artifacts. A PreK family understands a photo of a block structure plus the child's dictated words better than “approaching in cognition.” A Grade 3 family understands two writing samples three months apart plus a simple graph better than “42nd percentile on the benchmark.” Percentiles and scaled scores can be shared if you translate them: what the number is, what it is not (not a moral grade, not an IQ), and what you will do.
Strip jargon. Say “a short reading check we repeat each week so we can see growth” before you say CBM. Say “an English language test required each year” before ACCESS. Say “supports written in the learning plan” before a stack of IEP acronyms. If a term must appear, define it once in plain language.
Make it two-way. Ask what the family sees: Which language does the child prefer for stories at home? When is homework a battle? Has anyone noticed the same counting mix-up at the grocery store? Families of English learners must receive essential information in a language they understand (PDE's Educating English Learners BEC lists report cards, progress reports, conference notices, and ACCESS results among required communications). That is an assessment-partnership duty, not a courtesy.
Interpreters and who may not interpret
For conferences about scores, disability, or English-learner status, use a qualified interpreter who can handle education terms and who understands confidentiality. PDE and federal civil-rights guidance are blunt: do not rely on students, siblings, or friends for translations that require confidentiality — parent–teacher conferences included. A four-year-old should not explain a WIDA score to a parent. A bilingual fifth grader should not interpret a Grade 1 sibling's intervention graph.
Schedule extra time when an interpreter is present. Speak to the family, not to the interpreter. Pause. Avoid idioms (“he's in the red,” “below the cut”). Provide translated written summaries when practicable; if a written translation is not available for a less common language, PDE allows an oral explanation with a cover explaining how to get the document interpreted.
Exam trap: “The child is bilingual, so the child can interpret the conference” is always the wrong assessment-partnership move.
Students as partners, developmentally
0002.8 includes communicating with students. In PreK, that is brief, concrete, and kind: “You counted these bears; tomorrow we will count a bigger group.” In Grade 2–4, children can look at their own graph, name a goal in kid language, and help choose a strategy. Do not use public comparison (“everyone look, you're last on the chart”). Shame is not progress monitoring.
Partnerships with colleagues around assessment
The general education teacher is often the person who holds the classroom evidence. Specialists hold complementary lenses:
| Colleague | Assessment partnership look |
|---|---|
| ESL / ELD teacher | Joint look at content probes versus ACCESS domains; whether language supports on the task were sufficient; next linguistic scaffolds |
| Special educator | Whether documented accommodations were used on the probe; whether the graph suggests a need to adjust instruction (IEP process itself is Chapter 7) |
| Speech-language pathologist | Whether an oral-language sample is typical, a language difference, or a possible disorder — without using English proficiency as the disability determinant |
| Reading / math specialist | Comparable probes, grouping, intervention change when trend is below aim |
| Previous teacher or receiving teacher | Records that travel: graphs, work samples, what already failed |
| Related services / counselor | Need-to-know pieces only (attendance, regulation) that explain performance context |
Bring the graph and the work, not a vibe. A Grade 1 teacher who says “he's low” gives colleagues nothing to do. A teacher who says “letter-sound probe trend is below aim; he identifies /m/ and /s/ but not short vowels; ELD notes strong home-language storytelling” gives the team a plan.
FERPA still applies in the lounge. Need-to-know is not “anyone with an opinion.” Announcing a child's scores by name at lunch, or forwarding an IEP progress file to a teacher who does not work with the child, is not collaboration.
Professional learning communities that look at anonymous or appropriately role-based student work can be powerful. When the child is identifiable, limit the circle to people with a legitimate educational interest.
Responsible channels: do not email identifiable data unsafely
Assessment partnerships die on unsafe technology. Do not email identifiable student data unsafely. That includes:
- Personal Gmail, Yahoo, or text threads with names plus scores, IEP status, or ACCESS results
- A group email whose recipients can see every child's results
- Attachments of class rosters with probe scores sitting in an unsecured inbox or on a home printer
- Social media, class apps used as public feeds, or “I'll just post the percentiles so parents can compare”
- Photos of other children's scored work in a parent chat
Use district-approved gradebook messages, secure portals, encrypted systems the LEA names, or a phone call / in-person conference for sensitive results. Share only what that partner needs: a parent needs their child's graph; a colleague who co-teaches needs that child's file; a whole-grade listserv needs neither.
If you must send a file, follow district procedure (often a secure platform, not a personal account). When in doubt, talk live and document a brief conference note in the official system.
PreK–4 snapshots the exam can write tomorrow
PreK conference. The teacher invites the family with a qualified interpreter, shows two photos of counting collections, reads the child's dictated words, asks what counting looks like at home, and agrees on a snack-time counting routine. She does not hand the family a printout of unexplained domain codes.
Kindergarten dual-identified child. The teacher meets the ESL teacher and special educator with the same three work samples and a simple graph. They check that extra time and a scribe were actually used on the language sample, and that the science sort allowed pointing. They do not debate IEP legal roles (Chapter 7); they align assessment conditions and next teaching.
Grade 4 PSSA practice. The teacher conferences privately. Strength first: science notebook explanations improved. Then the reading-probe trend. Next steps in plain language. Scores go home through the portal, not as a named hallway chart. A colleague who does not teach the child does not get the spreadsheet.
Exam traps for 0002.8
- Jargon as professionalism. Unexplained WIDA, CBM, NRT, and percentile talk is a communication failure.
- Child as interpreter. Never for confidential assessment conversations.
- Deficit-only conferences. Strength plus evidence plus plan is the partnership pattern.
- One-way report cards. Partnerships ask families what they see.
- Lounge data. Collaboration is need-to-know, not gossip.
- Unsecured email of PII. The most testable “responsible communication” miss.
Before you share a result, check four boxes: right person, plain language, strength and next step, secure channel. If any box is empty, you are not yet in an assessment partnership.
A PreK family whose home language is not English is coming to a conference about assessment results. Which practice best establishes a responsible assessment partnership?
A Grade 4 teacher wants to update a colleague and a parent about a student's PSSA practice scores and IEP reading probes. Which communication choice is responsible?
A Grade 1 teacher notices a dual-identified English learner is not showing math growth on weekly probes. What is the best assessment partnership move with colleagues?