The school must disaggregate the data for the following groups of students only if the subgroup represents at least 10 percent of the school’s total enrollment in the current school year:
- students eligible for free or reduced-priced meals,
- any minority (non-white) ethnic/racial group,
- limited English proficient students,
- students with disabilities.
In the application itself, refer to Part II, Demographic Data items 4, 6, 7, and 8 for the percentages of total current enrollment of potential subgroups.
Important Note: If indeed the school meets the 10 percent standard described above, it then only needs to report assessment results for subgroups if there are at least 10 tested students in the subgroup in a given grade. If the number of students assessed in any subgroup is fewer than 10, do not report the test results or the number of students assessed for the subgroup.
With respect to meal-eligible students, the school must disaggregate the data (assuming the conditions above apply) whether or not the school actually offers the federal school meal program.
Disaggregated results for student groups must be similar to the levels of all students tested. At a minimum, student subgroups must be at the 60th student percentile or higher on nationally standardized tests or state tests if administered.
Note that you cannot average percentiles when calculating disaggregated scores. You can average scale scores, however. Accordingly, if you have to disaggregate scores, you should report all scores for all grades as scale scores so that your score reporting is consistent. Also, you must provide evidence from the testing company and/or the state that disaggregated scale scores are at the 60th student percentile or higher. It gets complicated, so you might want to contact CAPE on this point.
SPECIAL NOTE: There has been lingering confusion regarding disaggregation. When a school reports test scores for an entire grade and measures those scores against the cut scores for the program, the expectation is that those scores reflect the performance of ALL students in the grade. If schools are required to report disaggregated results for certain groups because they meet the conditions described above, those groups and their results are not then removed from the scores for the entire grade. In effect, the results for those groups are reported twice: once as part of the entire grade and once as a disaggregated group.
