I have students who are re-testing on ISTEP during the upcoming fall test. Is there anything special I need to do?

Students that are re-testing on ISTEP during the upcoming fall test should be submitted using the regular DOE-ISTEPBAR data layout; there is nothing special that schools need to do for these students in this data collection. The purpose of this collection is to generate labels; if they are taking the test, you should submit data for labels.

Do we submit data for ISTEP labels for ISTAR students?

Labels are not needed for ISTAR.  However, it is easier for some schools/corps to submit ALL of their students to create barcodes.  We allow them to do so and just destroy the unused labels.

Our principals have been calling other schools in the state asking for ISTEP+ information (both scores and "pass/fail") for students enrolled in their IPS last year for 162+ days. This year, some principals of contacted schools are arguing that such a release would be a violation of FERPA or some other law protecting ISTEP+ scores. Since they have never heard this before, they are understandably confused. Could you help me to shed some light on this matter?

It is a violation of FERPA! Only those with a "direct educational interest" can see the scores. In other words if you educated a child all last year and that student moved to MSD Wayne over the summer, they would be breaking federal law if they reported any student information to you at all, test scores, attendance, grades, under FERPA you (IPS) no longer have an "educational interest" in the child.

All the students in my school speak English, so in the Language Minority field should I mark them all as "Fluent English Proficient (FEP)" or "Native English Speaker"?

In most cases, neither.

I discovered I made some mistakes in my ISTEPBAR file. Now that the second ISTEPBAR window is open, can I send in corrected information for these students?

No. The second window is only for additional STNs. You cannot resubmit for STNs that were submitted in the first collection period.

[Note: This FAQ applies to DOE-ISTEPBAR collections prior to 2007-2008]
I left the last field blank in my Excel file because I don't have any Language Minority students. When I save my file as CSV and submit it, I get an error about having an incorrect number of data elements. When I open my file in Notepad, there's nothing after Socio-economic Status (SES).

The simplest solution to this problem is to put an apostrophe (') - also known as a single quotation mark - in any cell in the last column (the "LM" column) that is intentionally left blank. (Tip: If the records with blank LM fields are all grouped together, you can put one apostrophe in the first row and copy it down.) This will tell Excel to fill in the comma to indicate a blank item at the end. (Note that you will not be able to see the apostrophe in the worksheet but if you go to the cell, you can see it in the formula editing bar.) STN Support can provide additional assistance if you intend to prepare your data file in Excel.