FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
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JIM HORNE
Commissioner of Education
F. PHILIP HANDY,
Chairman
T. WILLARD FAIR,
Vice Chairman
Members
SALLY BRADSHAW
LINDA J. EADS, ED.D.
CHARLES PATRICK GARCÍA
JULIA L. JOHNSON
WILLIAM L. PROCTOR, PH.D.
CONTACT PERSONS
Name:
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Mary Jo Butler
Dianne Cox
Phone:
(850) 245-0479
(850) 245-9754
Suncom:
205-0479
205-9754
E-mail:
maryjo.butler@fldoe.org
dianne.cox@fldoe.org
DPS: 04-068
MEMORANDUM
To:
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District School Superintendents
From:
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Jim Warford
Date:
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January 9, 2004
Subject:
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IDENTIFICATION OF THE TOP 20% OF THE GRADUATING CLASS OF
The Department of Education needs your help to identify students in the class of 2004 who
rank in the top 20% of their graduating class and who may be eligible for the Talented 20
Program. The attached document,
Technical Specifications for the Submission of Talented
20 Transcript Evaluation Data,
provides details related to data submission.
JIM WARFORD
K – 12 Chancellor
325 W. GAINES STREET • SUITE 514 • TALLAHASSEE, FL 32399-0400 • (850) 245-0509 • www.fldoe.org
District School Superintendents
January 9, 2004
Page Two
General guidelines for determining the top 20% of the graduating class are as follows:
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Identify the top 20% of students in the senior class including those students who have
selected a three-year, 18-credit graduation program. Include only students from schools
that offer a standard curriculum such as regular district high schools, combination
schools, magnet schools, charter schools, alternative schools, and other schools
identified by the district that offer a standard curriculum and the 18 college preparatory
credits as specified in section 1007.261, Florida Statutes.
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Rank the students in your senior class who are receiving a standard diploma. Use the
cumulative grade point average (GPA) calculation methodology that you use to
determine the valedictorian. Placement in the top 20% of the senior class must be
based upon the ranking by cumulative GPA after the posting of seventh semester
grades. You must include all students in the ranking who are scheduled to graduate in
2004, including those students who have selected a three-year graduation program.
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High schools that include both a traditional and a magnet program must report separate
lists. These are the top 20% of the senior class in the magnet program and the top 20%
of the senior class in the traditional programs. The sum of both lists cannot exceed 20%
of the total senior class. Schools are responsible for determining if any program at their
school qualifies as a magnet program.
All courses must be on the transcript – including courses in progress (both courses now in
progress and those students will be taking during the second half of their senior years),
courses for students on block schedule, Florida Virtual High School online courses, and
dual enrollment courses for students classified as “early admit” students. Early admit
students are eligible for the Talented 20 Program and must be included in class rank.
It is imperative that you review students’ mailing addresses and student identification
numbers for accuracy. It is preferable that you send
social security numbers
to facilitate
matching transcripts with SAT and ACT scores.
All data, including corrections to the eligibility reports, must be received no later than
Friday, March 5, 2004
. If you have questions regarding the Talented 20 Program, please
contact Helen Lancashire at hlancash@tempest.coedu.usf.edu or (850) 488-1842. If you
have questions regarding transmission of data or other technical matters, please contact
Dianne Cox at Dianne.cox@fldoe.org or (850) 245-9754. Thank you for your prompt
attention to our request.
JW: mjbf
Attachment
cc:
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MIS contacts
District Student Services Directors
District Guidance Supervisors
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Technical Specifications for the Submission of Talented 20
Transcript Evaluation Data via FASTER
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Social Security Number (preferred)
or Florida Student ID number should be verified
for accuracy.
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The
weighted GPA
should be put in the
Grade Point Average District, Cumulative
field.
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The
unweighted GPA
should be put in the
Grade Point Average State, Cumulative
field.
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Both
Grade Point Average District, Cumulative
and
Grade Point Average State,
Cumulative
are required fields for submission of Top 20 transcripts.
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Only students who will receive a
standard diploma
should be submitted to Talented 20.
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Student mailing address
should be verified for accuracy.
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Data submitted for the Talented 20 Program transcript evaluation can be sent to
FASTER addressed institution 82
, just like last year. However, to reduce the total
number of transcripts you must send to the DOE, you may use the alternative
transmission method (described below) to submit your transcripts.
You do not have to
use the alternative method; it is simply another way you may choose to submit
students to the Talented 20 Program.
The choice is entirely yours, and you can use
either or both methods.
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Remember to include courses in progress and courses that will be taken in the 8
th
semester.
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These data will be processed nightly beginning
Monday, February 9, 2004
. Districts
may submit as many transcript evaluations as needed up to the March 5th deadline.
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An eligibility report will be produced for Talented 20 transcript evaluation data that are
submitted. This will be available at the Northwest Regional Data Center for districts to
download the day after the data are submitted and will be recreated each time the
district submits data. The data set name for this report is DPSxx.GQ.F70170.Y0304
where ‘xx’ is your district number. This report will contain information on each student
that has been submitted for transcript evaluation and the student’s eligibility status, and
will be in the same format used last year (copy attached).
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Remember to carefully review student eligibility status. For those students deemed
ineligible, verify their data to determine if corrections are necessary and resubmit the
transcript(s) to make these corrections. Note that if a guidance counselor is having
trouble understanding the results of a student’s Talented 20 evaluation, the counselor
can use the Bright Futures On-line Transcript Entry and Evaluation System to access
the FACTS system and see how the student’s courses were used in the FACTS SUS
Admissions evaluation. Just bring up a school’s list of students and click on the F button
in the Action/Select Box column. Guidance counselors no longer need a student’s help
to get into FACTS. For seniors, this is the same as the evaluation for the Talented 20
Program, and details on how individual courses were used can be accessed using the
“Course Summary Evaluation” tab. Where a course has been used to satisfy a
requirement, the subject area in which it was used will appear under the “SUS” column
(the rightmost column). This column will be blank where a course was not used.
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The final submission of this data will be on
Friday, March 5, 2004
. At that point, the
data will be locked and no further processing will occur. Questions related to locked
data should be directed to Mary Jo Butler.
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Alternative Transcript Submission Method
This year, school districts have been requested to submit all their high school students’
transcripts to the Bright Futures System (
FASTER addressed institution 95
). This is
being done to support the FACTS High School Audit, which lets your students view their
Bright Futures eligibility reports over the worldwide web.
One of this year’s FACTS transcript submissions is to be made after fall term grades have
been posted and students have registered for their spring term courses. This coincides with
the Talented 20 Program submission. If you make your Bright Futures/FACTS transmission
and then turn around and submit the transcripts of the top 20 percent of your students to the
Talented 20 Program, you will have submitted these students’ transcripts twice. This was
the old procedure and, if you find this method is still the most effective for your school
district, you can follow the same procedure this year.
However, for those districts that would like to submit the transcripts of the top 20 percent of
their students one time only and have them automatically sent to the Bright Futures,
FACTS, and Talented 20 Programs, an
alternative transmission method
has been
developed. Basically, when you submit your transcripts to Bright Futures/FACTS, you will
flag the transcripts of the top 20 percent of your seniors with an indicator that requests
these students’ transcripts be forwarded to the Talented 20 Program. Thereafter, these
students’ transcripts will be marked as being in the top 20 percent of their graduating class.
This will be true even if a subsequent transcript is received without the flag being set. To
remove a student from being in the top 20 percent of their graduating class, a school district
will have to apply to Mary Jo Butler.)
To submit a transcript to the Talented 20 program using this
alternative transmission
method:
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Follow the method above in preparing the student’s transcript for transmission with the
exception that you will address the transcript to
FASTER addressed institution 95,
and FASTER addressed school 0470
, just like you would address this senior’s
transcript to the Bright Futures Early Evaluation Test System and FACTS. (If this student
is already in the Bright Futures Early Evaluation Production System, use
FASTER
addressed school 0471.)
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Additionally
, set Message Type (field #5 on the FASTER Header Record, at character
positions 36-38) to the value ‘
Q20
’ instead of the Message Type value you would
normally have used in a Bright Futures transmission.
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Then submit this student’s transcript along with all the other transcripts you are
submitting for FACTS. This will result in the student’s transcript being made available to
the Talented 20 Program, in addition to supplying it to the Bright Futures Early
Evaluation and FACTS. Thereafter, any replacement transcript you submit to the Bright
Futures Early Evaluation will also replace the student’s Talented 20 coursework (until
the Talented 20 Program records are locked). This will be true whether or not you again
use the ‘Q20’ Message Type.
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Once the Talented 20 Program is locked, you can continue to update this student’s
Early Evaluation transcript for purposes of the Bright Futures System. The only
difference is that this student’s Talented 20 evaluation results will no longer be affected
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by the new transcripts. The information on which the Talented 20 evaluations were
based will be archived to maintain a record of the student’s final Talented 20
evaluation.)
Again, you can use last year’s transmission method or this year’s transmission method. If
need be, you can use both interchangeably. This is because the records are being stored
in a single database and either transmission method will get a student’s records loaded.
Once the student’s records are in the database you, again, can update them using either
method (until Talented 20 records are locked). Each new transmission of the student’s
transcript will change the coursework on file in the database and result in a new evaluation
being conducted. The only caveat is that once a student has been designated as being in
the top 20 percent of their senior graduating class, that designation cannot be undone
without applying to Mary Jo Butler.
A sample eligibility report appears on the next two pages.
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FILE DPSXX.GQ.F70170
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
PAGE
1
DISTRICT: YOUR COUNTY
SCHOOL: 9999 A SCHOOL IN YOUR COUNTY
TIME
2001-2002 TALENTED 20 EVALUATION REPORT
TALENTED 20
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME MIDDLE NAME STUDENT-ID STATUS ENGLISH MATH NAT SCI SOC SCI FOR LANG ELEC
DOE
JOHN
Q
123456789 ELIGIBLE
ROE
RICHARD P
987654321 ELIGIBLE
SMITH
JOE
MADEUP 1900012345 INELIGIBLE
2.00
2.00 1.00
JONES
SUSAN
1900054321 ELIGIBLE
DATE 03/07/2003
12.00.00
REQUIRED CREDITS MISSING IN EACH SUBJECT AREA (IF ANY)
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FILE DPS19.GQ.F70170
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
PAGE
2
DISTRICT: YOUR COUNTY
SCHOOL:
TIME
2001-2002 TALENTED 20 EVALUATION REPORT
TOTAL STUDENTS EVALUATED:
4
ELIGIBLE FOR TALENTED 20:
3
TOTAL INELIGIBLE STUDENTS:
1
DATE 03/07/2003
12.00.00
