USBE trainers review DLM account, rostering and testing logistics for district coordinators

Tracy Gulley, special education assessment specialist at the Utah State Board of Education (USBE), led a DLM (Dynamic Learning Maps) district coordinators training that covered educator-portal accounts, rostering, required trainings, and the technical steps districts must complete before the spring summative testing window. Gulley emphasized that districts are responsible for creating teacher accounts and rosters and for ensuring students who require alternate assessment are marked correctly in local student information systems.

Gulley said the alternate assessment “is used in accountability, both state and federal in place of RISE, Utah Aspire Plus or ACT” and described DLM as a computer-based, adaptive assessment for students whose IEP teams have determined they require instruction through alternate achievement standards (the essential elements). She said DLM is administered for ELA and math in grades 3–11 and for science beginning in grade 4.

Districts were given a short checklist of operational responsibilities: ensure the student 1% flag is set in the district SIS (the SCRAM special-education record), create teacher accounts using school email addresses and the Cactus educator identifier where available, build unique rosters (recommended roster-name format: teacherLastName + org number + subject), and confirm teachers complete the DLM required training before accessing test-management functions in the Kite educator portal. Gulley warned that student records uploaded to DLM via the nightly API/roster feed typically appear within 3–5 business days after the district sends the SIS extract, and that DLM pulls data from USBE nightly at 9 p.m., so loads after that hour take an extra day to appear.

Gulley reviewed rostering rules: a student can be rostered to only one teacher per subject, rosters must be uniquely named (hence the org number), and districts may create proctor accounts for paraprofessionals by entering their email as the educator identifier (proctors see all students in the assigned school). She also explained deactivating vs removing users, how to reactivate inactive accounts and resend activation emails, and that only USBE staff (Gulley and Maureen) can move a teacher account between districts.

On pre-test requirements, Gulley said teachers must complete the “first contact survey” for each student and set PNP (personal needs and preferences) accessibility settings before testlets will deliver; those settings follow the student year-to-year. She added that after the first contact survey or PNP changes are submitted, the system may take up to 24 hours (overnight) to deliver testlets. Gulley warned that students who complete even a single testlet are counted as participants and will generate a score report, though a single testlet is not sufficient for a reliable score.

Gulley walked through available data extracts and monitoring tools in the educator portal — examples include current enrollment, roster and PNP status, first contact survey completion, test administration extracts, and the GRF (general research file) available in the end-of-year data extracts — and urged districts to download and archive these files. She also recommended that districts identify a process for getting score reports to teachers and parents early in the fall (USBE typically delivers DLM score reports to educator portal in July and districts must distribute them to parents within three weeks of receiving them).

District coordinators were encouraged to use the DLM district Padlet and the Kite educator portal user guide for step-by-step instructions and screenshots.