Site Rollover Requests are Due by August 22nd
Please review your Federal Reports and the "Steps to End FY08" that are posted on the ACLS website under SMARTT System Information. Make sure that you use the Site Rollover Report to ensure that you have updated all pertinent information. This report will help you update your goal, assessment, and attendance data. The Site Rollover Report link is located under the "SITE" section. Remember that the report always lists only current students at the site. When you exit a student from the site, you verify that all the information has been updated. Detailed information was included in this Site Rollover Section of the May mailing SMARTT Update.
Partial Intakes are Now Available
The partial intake feature is again available for programs until site rollover in late August, when all FY09 changes are made in the SMARTT system. The purpose of the partial intake feature is to allow programs to enter a small amount of information for newly enrolled students during the summer, in order to generate a SMARTT ID and thus allow the student to take the MAPT test.
FY09 Student Intake and Goal Forms are Posted
The student intake and goal forms for FY09 are posted on the ACLS website under the SMARTT System Information section. There are just a few changes to the forms, which are listed below.
Student Intake: "ABE Program" has been added to the "Referral" section, under the "Basic Information" section, so that ACLS can track when students have been referred from ABE Programs.
Student Goals: Two new goals have been added to the Follow-up section You may remember that a policy update included in the June mailing explained that limiting the definition of occupational training to programs of 12 months or longer duration did not adequately capture the full spectrum of occupational trainings available to ABE students, and that two new occupational training goals would be added in order to provide a more complete picture of student goal achievement relative to entering and completing training.
These new goals are:
- Occupational training programs <6 months in duration (Enter and Complete)
- Occupational training programs 6 - 12 months in duration (Enter and Complete)
Note that there was no change to the goal for occupational training programs >12 months in duration (Enter, Retain, and Complete).
The goal to "Retain in Transitional Education" was removed, so programs only need to collect data for entering and completing transition programs.
Revisiting Student Goals Regularly - Last GED Data Match Completed on 7/2/08
The SMARTT Update in the June mailing included a reminder that we are not allowed to include in the Federal Report the achievement of any goal, if that goal was not set by the student prior to achieving it. ACLS has been monitoring the proportion of GEDs earned that we are and are not able to report, by data matching students enrolled in SMARTT with the GED database maintained by Oklahoma Scoring Service.
https://smartt.doemass.org/sids
The last GED data match with Oklahoma Scoring Service was completed on July 2. Two hundred thirty five (235) GED recipients were students enrolled in ABE classes (had class attendance entered in SMARTT). Of these, two hundred eleven (211) students - ninety percent (90%) - had set the goal "Obtain GED," and will be reported in the Federal Report. The other twenty four students (10% of the GED recipients who were enrolled in ABE programs) had not set "Obtain GED" as a goal, unfortunately are not able to be included in the Report.
In order to ensure that student accomplishments are credited, it is important to meet with students on a regular basis to make sure goals are set, new goals are identified, and the dates set are entered into the system. As you review the goals section of the Site Rollover Report, you will see the list of names where goal records have not been updated/reviewed since May 1st. This list is very helpful to make sure that you record all outcomes at the end of the year. Thank you for your continued efforts in this area.
SMARTT Users Group - Volunteers Still Needed
ACLS is still looking for more volunteers who can test new SMARTT features and provide guidance during the design phase, when sections are redesigned or new sections are developed. Five staff have volunteered so far, but we would like a total of 5 to 20 volunteers so that we would have a pool of ten users at any given time. If you are willing to be part of this new SMARTT Users Group, please e-mail Donna Cornellier at dcornellier@doe.mass.edu.
SMARTT Training Schedule Posted http://www.doe.mass.edu/acls/smartt
The updated training schedule is now posted. Note that the next two SMARTT New User Trainings are scheduled for October 16th at ALRI in Boston and November 6th at Quinsigamond CC from 9:30 - 3:30. To register for this training and other trainings, please go to http://calendar.sabes.org/ and click on your region, or, contact the regional offices directly.
In order to ensure that the program has at all times the required two staff trained in SMARTT and Cognos, program directors are requested to have appropriate staff attend the scheduled upcoming trainings. Programs are encouraged to have several staff attend SMARTT and Cognos update trainings to be award of additional new features. Please notify the SABES regional office as soon as possible with future training needs, so that SABES can schedule appropriate trainings. For contact information, see http://www.sabes.org/staff.htm.
State Government · State Services 
