At Ellevation, Continuous Learning is a core value - and there is no better group to learn from than our partners. During this back to school season, we’re introducing several new features and updates that are a direct result of listening to their feedback. What tasks do you do over and over again that we can make faster and easier? What student data do you find yourself hunting for that we can surface? When do you find yourself saying “If only everyone in my district knew this,” where we can help spread the knowledge?

Here are just some of the exciting new features we’re confident will help ELL educators better serve their English language learners.

New: Student Document Storage

Our partners love how Ellevation stores and provides access to so many key data points about ELLs, but there was a missing piece to the puzzle: electronic versions of key documents. So often relegated to a folder somewhere deep in the central office, key ELL documents should be available to anyone within Ellevation who has access to an ELL’s record. And now, with Student Document Storage, we've made this possible:

• Upload documents such as home language surveys, assessment reports, signed parental permission forms, and more. Student documents are available to everyone with access to students in Ellevation, with the option for classroom teachers to view as well.
• Classroom teachers can contribute to a student’s Ellevation record by uploading and sharing evidence of success such as writing samples or student evaluations.
• Seamlessly request transfers of student documents when requesting a student data transfer from another Ellevation district.

Student Document Storage is available to all partners that purchase Ellevation Collaborate.

New: Digital Monitoring Improvements

Ellevation’s Monitoring feature has taken off like a rocket. Tens of thousands of digital monitoring forms are filled out by classroom teachers in Ellevation each semester, and we’ve gotten great feedback about them. Based on what we’ve learned, we’ve made some key improvements to make this feature even better!

• As before, Monitoring allows districts to manage their monitoring process for current and exited ELLs (RFEP, FLEP, etc.) by sharing customized digital monitoring forms with teachers. Teachers can complete, sign and submit forms entirely online.
• We’ve added additional options to control which students are eligible for which monitoring forms, and more powerful options for ensuring just the right teacher gets the right form for their students. If you're a partner, ask your partner support manager for additional form assignment options.
• Teachers filling out Monitoring forms now have access to more complete student information while filling out forms, including student proficiency levels, statuses, test results, and even course grades! This classroom teacher version of Ellevation is now available to all teachers in districts that use Ellevation Collaborate.

Monitoring is available to all partners that purchase Ellevation Collaborate.

Many of our partners heard about Instructional Strategies, which we developed after many months of listening to the instructional needs of ELL departments and teachers across the country. This tool allows classroom teachers to be more effective educators of ELLs, containing a suite of actionable activities to be used across grade levels and content areas, all while embedding supports for your ELLs based on student proficiency levels.

We haven’t rested though. As with every new feature at Ellevation, we continue to learn from our partners and are excited to announce new features within Strategies.

New: Activity Recommendations

ELL specialists can better inform instruction by recommending specific activities for classroom teachers to use with ELLs. Here’s how it works:

• ELL Admins, Specialists, and Coaches can now “Recommend” specific activities for specific students.
• Recommended activities will be visible to those students’ classroom teachers on the students’ Instruction tab on their student profile
• Recommended activities will also appear on the student's ELL Student Plan, ensuring that all who have access to the plan are aware of the ELL team’s recommended instruction for a student.

Classroom activities are available to partners that purchase Ellevation Strategies.

Coming Soon: More Content Examples

We’ve learned that classroom teachers love content examples that show how an activity could work in their subject area and grade level. We’re pleased to announce that this fall we’ll be adding over 1,000 more content examples. Each activity will soon have a content example for ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies, at every grade level, and they will be linked to college and career readiness standards.

Coming Soon: More Classroom Activities

We continue to add new activities and plan to make more than 80 available by the end of fall. These classroom activities are designed to be universal enough that a teacher could choose a strategy—based upon the needs of the students—and apply it to any content unit or lesson. Multiply those 80 activities by the array of lessons taught by teachers every day, and the possibilities are endless.

Classroom activities are available to partners that purchase Ellevation Strategies.

Other New Features

We’ve made some smaller improvements as well:

• Ability to use end-of-course grades in exit criteria
• Ability to filter for students missing Goals and Instructional Accommodations/Modifications
• Better, and more targeted, monitoring permissions. Now - if desired - only specific users can be given permission to assign monitoring forms

Special Features for Texas Districts 

Test Accommodation Recommendations

For our partners in Texas, we’re introducing a new feature this fall, allowing LPAC users to gather teacher recommendations for testing accommodations, and accept those accommodations during the Mid-Year Assessment LPAC. Key features include:

• LPAC users can pre-designate which STAAR assessment their students will take - individually or in batch - ensuring that classroom teachers are recommending the correct accommodations based on the student’s testing needs.
• Digital forms can be automatically sent to student’s classroom teachers for online completion before the busy mid-year LPAC season.
• LPAC users can review teacher accommodation recommendation forms directly within Ellevation LPACs, and accept or edit them with one click.

TestHound Compatibility 
We are pleased to announce a partnership with TestHound. Now, the testing accommodations that are set within Ellevation can be automatically sent to TestHound and uploaded into their system. Stay tuned to an announcement from your partner support manager to learn how to configure your automated export of testing accommodations this fall. 

At Ellevation, we’re tirelessly dedicated to improving our ELL software. We can’t wait to hear what our partners think of the new features, and we especially can’t wait to share more improvements that are just around the corner, including an updated user-experience.

Finally, we look forward to hearing how our improvements may have played a small role in helping hard-working educators do what they do best - create a better future for English language learners.