Facilitator Instructions

The ESSA Stakeholder Engagement Toolkit provides resources to support stakeholder engagement during the development of California’s ESSA Consolidated State Plan.

If you would like to conduct a stakeholder engagement activity, the toolkit contains all of the resources you will need. Below you will find instructions for presenting these resources to your group of stakeholders.

Step 1 – Preview Overview Materials

To set the context your activities, your participants may need some overview information. Below are links to a presentation that provides a quick overview of ESSA and the requirements for the Consolidated State Plan. A recording of the live presentation and materials are also provided below. You will also find links to the ESSA State Plan templates provided by the U.S. Department of Education, which may be useful for participants for understanding the scope of the information required in the State Plan. There is also a link to California's ESSA Consolidated State Plan Development Timeline, so participants can understand the processes and procedures for developing the State Plan.

Overview Materials

California ESSA Webinar for Education Stakeholders and Public

• ESSA and State Plan Requirements Overview Presentation Slides (PDF)
• Webinar Materials

U.S. Department of Education ESSA State Plan Templates

• Consolidated State Plan Template (DOC; 29-Nov-2016)
• Assurances Template (DOC; 29-Nov-2016)
  

Timeline

Final ESSA regulations addressing the submission of state plans affect the timeline for California to submit its State Plan. This change has provided an opportunity for the CDE to reexamine its ESSA stakeholder engagement strategy. The ESSA State Plan will be available as a full draft on or before July 2017 for the statutorily required 30-day public comment period. The CDE anticipates presenting the ESSA State Plan for final State Board of Education (SBE) approval at the September 2017 SBE meeting before submitting it to the U.S. Department of Education on September 18, 2017. More detail regarding opportunities for stakeholders to engage in plan development activities will be provided in future SBE information memoranda and agenda items and the ESSA listserv.

Step 2 – Review Sections of the Draft Plan

After the participants learn about ESSA, the State Plan requirements, and California’s timeline to develop the State Plan, you can then present the draft sections of the State Plan. The California Department of Education has made available the draft plan sections in document form as well as video overviews of each section.

You will need to determine which sections of the draft plan your participants would like to review. They may want to review only certain sections or all of the sections of the draft plan.

You can then play the video overviews for participants. You can decide if you’d like to print out the slide presentations or the draft section documents for participants to review while watching the video overviews. Accessible versions of the presentations have also been provided. You can find all of these resources in the toolkits for each phase of stakeholder engagement.

Stakeholder Engagement – Phase II Toolkit

Step 3 – Public Comment

Once participants have had a chance to review the sections of the draft plan, you can promote their engagement with the public comment survey. Links to the online survey and a document version of the survey are provided in each toolkit above. The survey will gauge participants’ response to each section of the draft plan and collect any feedback they may have for ways to improve the section. Your participants may want to engage in a discussion before providing public comment. They may prefer to provide public comment later. Whatever the preference, please ensure they know how to access the survey and the draft documents and resources to inform their input.