Back to School Release - August 1, 2024

Back to School with the DESSA System

We learn so much from our partner districts each year through the ongoing collection of feedback from teachers, administrators, and student services professionals. We’re excited to share some of the latest system updates to ensure your DESSA program continues running as smoothly as possible in the 2024-2025 school year.

DESSA 2 and DESSA 2 mini

The newly normed, educator-completed DESSA 2 is now available for grades K-8. This updated assessment will help educators leverage highly reliable data to improve behavior, drive student engagement, and accelerate learning outcomes.

• Collect more comprehensive data in less than 5 minutes with only 40 items on the full DESSA 2 (the DESSA 2 mini is still only 8 items)
• Most up-to-date normative sample for a social-emotional assessment and screener
• More closely aligned with current social and emotional frameworks and state standards
• Modernized scales and items
• More efficient data analysis with 6 streamlined competencies to guide instruction
  • Optimistic Thinking
  • Self-Awareness
  • Self-Management
  • Social Awareness
  • Relationship Skills
  • Responsible Decision Making

The DESSA 2 is still...

• Nationally standardized and norm-referenced
• Strength-based
• Meeting or exceeding standards for reliability and validity
• CASEL-aligned
• Recommended for universal screening, detailed assessment, progress monitoring, outcome and impact evaluation

For more detailed information, check out this article.

Yearly Setup enhancements for deeper implementation customization

We’ve improved the Yearly Setup process for Program Administrators to allow for additional rating window customization and support capabilities for Site Leaders. If you’ve already completed Yearly Setup for the 2024-2025 school year, your settings will still remain intact once this update is released on August 1st.

Program Administrators voiced a need for Site Leaders to be able to turn student self-report assessments on and off at their assigned site. This capability can now be granted to Site Leaders by Program Administrators during the Yearly Setup process.

We’ve also received requests for the option to have each rating window reset to begin with DESSA mini screeners for ALL students. In the past, students who scored in the “Need for Instruction” range were automatically assigned a full DESSA in each subsequent rating window, but now you will have the option of continuing with that setting or resetting each window to begin with a screener.

Streamlined DESSA Student Portal registration process

To eliminate student registration obstacles, we’ve greatly improved students' process when they login to the DESSA Student Portal for the first time this year.

In the past, only Program Administrators and Site Leaders could support students with resetting their passwords, but Educators will now have this capability as well. Educators can generate unique password reset codes for their students that can be quickly scanned as a QR code or manually entered on the Student Portal login screen.

The addition of QR codes and printable registration cards for each student makes the initial registration process much simpler and faster so students can focus on completing their assessment, reviewing their DESSA data, and completing activities in the student portal.

With the addition of this new process, all students will need to re-register for this school year. Learn more here.

New grade-banded Tier 2 Programs

All of our Tier 2 Programs are now grade-banded to ensure students are receiving developmentally appropriate interventions targeting specific competencies. Keep in mind that the grade bands are general recommendations, but student needs should dictate which resources are selected. For example, while “Upper Elementary” typically includes grades 3-5, there may be students in these grades for whom the “Early Elementary” programs are more appropriate.

You can access these resources by clicking “Strategies” in the top navigation menu, then scrolling down and clicking “Explore Tier 2 Intervention Programs.” For more information about the DESSA Strategies and Interventions, contact your Success Team Member.  

Training

You’ll now have access to new and updated training offerings to ensure your team is up-to-date with the most relevant best practices whether they are a new DESSA System user or want to deepen their understanding of leveraging DESSA data to inform tiered supports for students. All self-paced courses have been updated to include details about the newly normed DESSA 2, refreshed content and downloadable resources, professional learning planning tools, and improvements for accessibility. A course Facilitator Guide has also been added to each Essentials course to support the facilitation of a live training session using a course as the session presentation, including facilitation best practices and modifications for flexible implementation.

New live virtual training sessions have been added to focus on the following topics: Unlocking Student Strengths: Using the DESSA for Students with Disabilities and Using the DESSA within the MTSS Framework.

For more information, check out our Arc of Professional Learning resource.