CalAPA Guidelines for Acceptable Support
This document outlines policies and guidelines for supporting candidates during their completion of the CalAPA. These guidelines apply to all support providers, including faculty, supervisors, cooperating teachers, peers, and others who may provide assistance (e.g., a tutor). Consistent with research on student learning, programs are encouraged to help candidates examine in meaningful ways the California Administrator Performance Expectations (CAPE) evaluated by the CalAPA, and to discuss how they will demonstrate their performance in relation to those expectations. Since the CalAPA is to be embedded within an administrative services preparation program, it is expected that candidates will engage in professional conversations with support providers about school leadership associated with the outcomes assessed by the CalAPA. Support providers are encouraged to review with the candidate the language, structure, and progression of a candidate's submission against the CalAPA rubrics, and to provide formative feedback and guidance to the candidate as part of the preparation program experience.
The following activities constitute required forms of support for candidates completing the CalAPA:
- Providing candidates with access to the CalAPA assessment preparation materials and other explanatory materials about the CalAPA and expectations for candidate performance on the assessment
- Explaining CalAPA leadership cycles and rubrics, and guiding discussions about them (e.g., orientation or overview sessions for each cycle)
- Engaging candidates in formative experiences aligned with the CalAPA (e.g., assignments on the investigate, plan, act, and reflect sequence; practice in instructional coaching)
- Ensuring that candidates complete the assessment within a cooperating school or district during their clinical experience and verify appropriate permissions for all individuals who appear in any video recording
- Engaging candidates in formative experiences aligned with the CalAPA (e.g., analyzing data, facilitating collaborative professional learning, and coaching for improved instruction)
- Providing candidates who are not successful on the CalAPA with additional support focusing on understanding the cycle(s) and rubric(s) on which the candidate was not successful as well as on understanding what needs to be resubmitted for scoring and the process for resubmitting responses for scoring
The following activities constitute acceptable forms of support for candidates completing the CalAPA:
- Referring candidates to the CalAPA Glossary and discussing definitions and clarifications of key terms as used in the assessment materials
- Reviewing examples of effective school leadership (e.g., planning documents, data analyses, facilitation, instructional feedback) using CalAPA rubrics or support documents
- Referring candidates to a writing workshop or center for assistance in improving writing for course assignments, as long as the assistance is not in the form of direct editing of candidate responses
- Recommending and/or providing specific assistance to address areas in which a candidate has demonstrated a need for improvement (e.g., reflective writing, facilitation, using data to inform planning, coaching teachers)
- Explaining scoring rubrics by using them in formative exercises or assignments outside of the ones the candidate will submit for scoring
- Linking content and experiences from the preparation program to the CAPE as measured by the CalAPA cycles and rubrics
- Providing a schedule/timeline for completion of the CalAPA
- Conducting "check-in" meetings to discuss timelines and deliverables, and to ascertain or address candidate questions.
- Paraphrasing or answering candidate questions about the content of leadership cycles, rubrics, directions (including templates), or support documents such as the CalAPA assessment materials
- Encouraging candidates to self-assess draft responses or video recordings against the CalAPA rubrics without providing direct edits to responses or specific answers to CalAPA prompts
- Answering common questions about the CalAPA in a group setting
- Facilitating candidate discussion groups that are intended to provide peer-to-peer support for completing the CalAPA while maintaining the original work of each candidate
- Directing candidates to resources on current research and evidence-based practices, and to experts in the field who are knowledgeable about the content of the cycles and rubrics
- Assisting candidates in understanding how to use the electronic platform for accessing materials and uploading submissions
- Arranging technical assistance for video-recorded portions of the CalAPA
- Providing and discussing support documents such as these guidelines for acceptable support and the CalAPA Rules of Participation
Although there may be many opportunities for support providers to encourage a candidate's deeper understanding and demonstration of educational leadership, other supports are not acceptable within the CalAPA process. These unacceptable forms of support will undermine the use of the assessment as a determinant of a candidate's status with respect to the CAPE and as an indicator of preparation program quality and effectiveness. Engaging in these activities could lead to a candidate's loss of the credential and jeopardize a program's accreditation status.
The following activities constitute unacceptable forms of support for candidates completing the CalAPA:
- Providing a candidate with the content or answers in response to a CalAPA prompt or task (e.g., choosing the data sources to investigate, conducting the data analyses, drawing conclusions on the implementation of strategies, redirecting candidates about who to observe)
- Editing a candidate's response prior to submission
- Conjecturing on CalAPA performance requirements, expectations, or what is deemed as sufficient evidence
- Using institutional terms and definitions as substitutes for those used in the CalAPA
- Offering critique of a candidate's draft responses prior to submission for official scoring that provides specific, alternative responses or answers to prompts
- Telling a candidate which video clips or work samples to select for submission
- Telling a candidate which sections of video clips should be annotated
- Uploading a candidate's responses (written or video-recorded) to publicly available websites or through social media
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