Oregon Department of Education Early Learning Division GOLD Application

For more information on the state of Oregon

Teaching Strategies GOLD was adopted by Oregon as the state’s formative assessment (a way to help identify children’s strengths and learning needs, and inform early childhood educators of them) to be used in programs receiving Oregon Prekindergarten (OPK) funding. In addition, many Preschool Promise and Baby Promise grantees use GOLD as their assessment tool and participate in ELD’s umbrella agreement with Teaching Strategies, who produces GOLD.

The Early Learning Division’s (ELD’s) GOLD umbrella agreement also includes community users in Oregon, such as licensed family child care programs and licensed centers. This offer is not an endorsement or recommendation that licensed child care and early learning programs use GOLD in their programs. Programs must choose an assessment that is appropriate for their setting.

Signing and Renewing GOLD Contracts under the State Agreement

  • The cost for GOLD subscriptions under the Oregon Department of Education Early Learning Division (ODE ELD) agreement is $13.00 per child per year. Programs are eligible for this contracted rate when they initially sign up and/or renew their licenses for GOLD. The one-time start-up fee for GOLD is waived for programs signing up under the state agreement.
  • ELD reserves the right to monitor use of GOLD to check the accuracy of data or how much the system is getting used.

Training

The ELD provides detailed training guidance and requirements for grantees. For community users, it can be found here:

It is strongly recommended that all staff receive training before using GOLD.  There are several free on-line options available on the MyTeachingStrategies website under Develop > My Courses, including:

GOLD Introduction / Introducción a Gold: two-hour self-study that introduces the components and structure for GOLD, after which teachers will have the basic skills to begin implementing GOLD using the online system.

 

 

Introducing MyTeachingStrategies / Introducción a MyTeachingStrategies, a two-hour overview of the online platform.

 

 

 

Objectives for Development and Learning / Objectivos para desarrollo y el aprendizaje, a ten-hour exploration of how the objectives for development and learning used in GOLD look at children’s growth and learning.

 

 

The Practice Environment, also available in the Development area, can be used to practice and/or demonstrate various GOLD activities.

In the MyTeachingStrategies Support Portal, “you can quickly and easily find the support you need by browsing articles or videos from our resource library, or simply type your question into the search bar ….” You can also access it by selecting the question mark in the lower left-hand side on most pages.

 

Interrater Reliability Certification

ELD requires that teachers in grantee programs achieve reliability certification before the fall checkpoint. For community users, we strongly recommend teachers demonstrate reliability.

Data Entry

It is important to have a consistent approach to entering program and child data so that accurate reports can be run at the classroom, program and state levels. Community users of the ELD umbrella agreement should carefully select funding sources appropriate to their enrolled children.

GOLD – Key Contacts

If you have questions or concerns about using GOLD please contact one of the following individuals:

For clarification and support implementing state policies and guidelines:
Michael Connor ([email protected])

GOLD Technical Support (for implementation questions and technical assistance)
[email protected]
1-866-275-8918

Please note that due to the volume of requests, it may take 3-4 weeks to process your request. You will receive contact from Teaching Strategies staff regarding your subscription.