Throughout each fiscal year and school year, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) provides support to local education agencies (LEAs) to help their staff complete an array of requirements such as statewide assessments and attendance reporting. These requirements are often legally mandated, some locally and some federally, and present unique opportunities for internal collaboration across OSSE divisions and external collaboration across agencies—such as the Common Financial Reporting Standards (CFRS).

Public schools in the District of Columbia offer various types of specialized coursework. Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and Dual Enrollment (DE) courses provide college credit and college preparation, while Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses provide preparation for both career and postsecondary education as well as potential opportunities for college credit.

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) has been tasked by our State Board of Education (SBOE) to add school climate survey data to the DC School Report Card. To do this, OSSE spent three years developing, procuring, piloting, and iterating the surveys of students, staff and families before launching the DC Survey About Your School (DC SAYS) in the spring of 2025. For the project overall, we are delighted that we had such a strong administration, owing most of the credit to the schools that prioritized this new workstream during a busy year.

In today’s data-driven education system, assessments are more than just a measure of student performance—they are a key component in evaluating program efficacy, teacher effectiveness, school accountability, and District-wide success. Assessment results are the foundation of a lot of important work. That’s why test security in our public schools is so critical.