Iowa: End of Year and Rollover Information (2024)

1. Team discussions - We recommend working with your administrative team now to discuss your default assessments for the next year and to coordinate a plan for timely completion of this task. If any changes in administration is expected over the summer, please be sure to make those changes in the School Information Update application in EdPortal.
2. Default assessment selection - New timelines this year will allow districts to select their default selection May 29-June 17th and have the opportunity to review and make changes (if needed)  August 1-15th.

Report changes in the following via the appropriate system listed

• Changing student information system (SIS)
  If your district is changing student information systems (SIS) for the next school year, please submit a support ticket in FastBridge, Panorama Student Success, or email connor.hood@iowa.gov. Communicating the intended change ASAP is recommended so we can work with you to set up the new data connection.
• Changing district email domain
  If your district is changing email domains, please let us know via a support ticket. We can walk you through the steps to ensure access to the system and resources during the transition. Changing email domains can break user permissions and rosters and must be planned carefully.
• Changing building and/or grade configurations
  If you are changing building and/or grade configurations, etc. please make sure that you enter the changes ASAP in the School Information Update application under the Iowa Education Portal. Also, make sure that your building name and grade setup in your district's student information system matches the new configuration. FastBridge uses the building names to identify buildings, so spelling and format is critical.

See: Iowa Summer School in FastBridge and Student Success

The summer rollover date for myIGDIs is August 15th. The recommended timeline for completing end-of-year activities (linked below) is by the end of the current school year, to be ready for summer rollover

See: myIGDIs End-of-Year Activities

Renaissance (the new FastBridge parent company) will likely send a few different emails about this year's FastBridge rollover. In general, the ONLY instruction Iowa users should follow in those emails is to select a rollover date. Remember, Iowa is set up different from nationwide FastBridge users. If additional action steps are needed by Iowa users, we will add them in this article.

• • Updating default screening windows (Iowa districts do not set their own)
  • Master Account Administrators/MAAs (Iowa doesn't have those)
  • Do not enable roster sync, even though it may be included in the instructions from FastBridge. Iowa does not enable district sync in FastBridge, however, you will need to work with your student information system manager to ensure that your SIF agent is set to send the new school year data and that data entry (including student schedules) has been completed for the new school year before the data will populate in FastBridge. Instructions you may see that do not apply to Iowa users:
    

FastBridge District Managers: Please work with your district team to select the appropriate rollover date. Multiple submissions will override all previous submissions. The date selected will be for the whole district and should be after summer school has ended, if PM will be collected during summer school. Below are the rollover date options for this year; it would be a good idea to begin your team discussions regarding selecting a date now. If you do not select a date, your district will be rolled over on the default (primary) rollover date. No matter which rollover date is selected, your student data will not populate in FastBridge after rollover until your district's SIF agent is set to send next year's student data (not just enter it).

2024 FastBridge Rollover Dates

• June 28-30th, 2024: Early Alternate rollover date
• July 26-28th, 2024: Primary rollover date unless otherwise chosen 
• August 23-25th, 2024: Late Alternate rollover date is available as an option but is strongly discouraged for Iowa districts. If you opt for late rollover, expect that you will have NO rosters until sometime in September. If your district is considering selecting late rollover, please contact help@fastbridge.org.
  

How to select your rollover date

In FastBridge, on the District Manager tab, you'll see the 'Action needed!' alert. Click More, select the desired district rollover date, and click Save.

Once a FAST District Manager has selected a rollover date, the notification will turn green and confirm the date selected.

The Iowa support team will handle most of the new school year setup steps for you but here are a few quick reminders of things that you may see in FastBridge instructions that are not intended for their Iowa users.

• DO NOT upload a roster file, as may be indicated in communications from FastBridge. Iowa rosters will continue to be managed as a part of the regular automated rostering process already in place using your student information system. We will be in contact with your district to coordinate the student information system and SIF rollover process, if necessary.
• DO NOT change the screening window or screening period dates. Those will be set up for the entire state. See Iowa: Screening Windows
• DO NOT change assessment definitions. They will already be set up for each district. However, if you have prior assessment selections you would like to remove (such as earlyReading in upper grades), please use the support ticket system before the system rollover and we will help. This must be done immediately after the rollover. 
• Only districts that purchase additional services directly from FastBridge may need to complete the end user license agreement. Most Iowa schools do not have a Master Account Administrator (MAA) because the FastBridge literacy assessment service was purchased by the Iowa Department of Education and/or optional K-8 math/behavior through contract with the Area Education Agency. Therefore, most districts do not have to worry about the End User License Agreement.
• For a full list of Iowa 'What NOT to change" see: A newbie (& veteran) guide to system and process differences for Iowa
• It can take a week (possibly more) for the complete rollover process and population of student data. Student data is populated using the data entry in the district's student information system, which requires the district SIF be rolled forward to send the new school year data and the enrollment and scheduling data entry for the new school year be completed. See also: Iowa: Back-to-School Checklist

Due to the new legislation, school districts seeking to retain access to the optional supplemental FastBridge components need to complete this form. This is for supplemental licenses for math/behavior and 7-12th literacy, math and behavior only. All schools will continue to have access to K-6 literacy provided by the state.

The form must be completed before 6/14/2024.

For questions, please reach out to:

Heather Miller, Account Manager

Email: heather.miller@renaissance.com

Cell: 402-290-4379

There are certain FastBridge reports that districts may prefer to retain, as the current year's data will not be available in report format (with graphical content) after the rollover. Those reports are listed below.

Individual student literacy, assessment and progress monitoring data/graphs will continue to be available in Iowa's MTSS data system, Student Success, after rollover and will follow students that move to another Iowa district. Nothing will need to be exported from Student Success.

FastBridge Reports Not Available After Rollover

Once rollover has occurred, the data from the previous school year will be archived and will only be accessible through some reports. See Accessing Data from Previous Years for more details.  

Historical data will be available through the Data Download and as line item or summary data in some reports, but if you want to retain graphical reports with tables, graphs and color-coded scoring info, you should retain those reports by printing or saving them as a PDF before your selected rollover date.

• Screening to Intervention (S2i) Reports
• Impact Report
• Group Growth Report
• Detailed Group Report
• Individual Skills Reports
• Group Skills Report
• Family Report

Completing interventions and leaving notes about how a student progressed, even if a goal was not met, is a good way to ensure that the students' future teachers will have the information necessary to support them. Any notes made stay with the student's intervention so are particularly helpful for students changing building or district for the next school year. This should be completed before before Panorama Student Success is rolled forward to the new school year, which is around July 15th for year round schools and August 7th for all others.

How to complete interventions

Individual (not group) Intervention Plans

• On the Students tab, select Intervention Plans from the left menu.
• Click the Actions button for the appropriate student and select Complete plan in the drop down menu.
  

Group Intervention Plans

Each student must be marked as Complete individually within a group plan. There is no option to mark the whole group as complete.

• On the Students tab, go to Group Plans on the left menu.
• Click on the appropriate intervention plan group.
• Click the student's name to expand the view and then click the More Actions next to that student and select Complete plan from the drop down menu.
  

If you have any static groups that you will not need to reference next year, such as a Lunch Bunch or extracurricular group, you may want to delete them to have a clean slate for next year. If you would like to keep the groups for reference, you may want to add the school year to the title so you can tell that the group is not one that you need to reference regularly. Smart groups should continue to update once the new school year starts, but you may want to review the criteria you have set to decide if it will still be important to track next year. Learn more about managing groups here.

Log any supports you put in place for students before the end of the year

Support notes are tied to the current school year and are always available on a student's profile. If you are supporting a student in any way, such as a phone call home, you can log this support note now so that educators who visit the student's profile in the future can see what supports were provided. 

If you're a district or school leader hoping to share these recommendations with your team to ensure you and your team are able to prepare your data in Student Success for the next school year.

Check out the recording of the End of Year Analysis webinar to learn how to utilize key pages and views to evaluate the health of your MTSS system this year as well as reflect on practices & outcomes across the school year.