1/30/2023 MTSS updates - Winter Window

This week is the final week of the Winter screening window. Below are a few important messages related to the window and system performance. Please share with your colleagues and building leadership.

• The window will close for regular screening at the end of the day on Friday, February 3rd. Here are a few things to check on before then so that there is time to resolve any concerns identified. 
  • Confirm that you have completed screening with your default assessments using Healthy Indicator report #1 in Student Success. Note that Student Success will reflect up to the previous day’s screening data. Check here to confirm the default assessments identified for your school. 
  • Please ensure that you’ve correctly ended school enrollment for students no longer attending at your school in the district’s student information system.
  • Students who are HSAP, Dual Enrolled or on alternate assessment can’t be removed from reports. 
  • If you experience issues with students missing for testing in FastBridge, please work with us in the FastBridge ticket system Monday or Tuesday so we have time to find and resolve the problems.
• We will be adjusting the Winter Screening window definitions in Student Success in order to manage some recent technical issues that could affect reports such as Healthy Indicators and Literacy Status calculations. The result is that HI reports will finalize February 17th, two weeks later than the end of the regular screening window. Literacy status calculations may continue to update until February 17th. Reports will switch to “between window” views after February 17. 
• When the screening window is over, then what?
  • For Iowa ELI law: K-6 student literacy status is automatically calculated for you in Student Success. There are some requirements based on student literacy status, as well as some best practices for supporting student needs. 
  • For Healthy Indicator reports: Review and discuss reports (after February 17th) to evaluate and plan action for improving processes and student outcomes. To better understand the data, see Healthy Indicators Overview and also this great Healthy Indicators Analysis guide to support those discussions.
  • Set up interventions and monitoring for students, as appropriate. Use the guide What Next? Setting Up Progress Monitoring and Interventions to assist with understanding what to do and where (PM in FAST, interventions in Student Success). 
• In February, FastBridge is planning to purge old user roles and assignments. All users with current roles and assignments in their EdPortal accounts should be able to login and use the system as always. The main difference is that old roles and assignments no longer present in the EdPortal should be cleared out of the FastBridge interface. No action is necessary, but if users experience problems with access to FastBridge via the Iowa Education Portal, please use the FastBridge ticket system to report the concern.
• The Iowa EdPortal is still experiencing some performance challenges intermittently impacting user access. Visit and bookmark the MTSS System Status Dashboard for updated information and workarounds for EdPortal and the other systems we support. 

Check out the news and new features articles in Panorama’s resource library for what’s happening in Student Success. Check this news article for information about what’s happening in the FAST system. Sign up for these emails here.