No. Schools and districts shall assess students and evaluate artifacts based upon the same standards that are applied to students earning course credit in the traditional sense. The achievement levels required to earn CDM through a two-phase assessment already reflect a more rigorous expectation of students who want to earn credit in this manner than those of students who complete the course with the traditional seat-time.

Generally, students should replace the course with the next course in the sequence, i.e. a student using CDM to earn a Math I credit should schedule Math II in its place. High school students might also use CDM credit to create space in their schedule that can be filled with a community college course available through Career & College Promise or other advanced course, such AP and IB. The NC Virtual Public School is also a source of courses for middle school and high school students who need to replace a course for which they have earned a CDM credit.

Yes. Students attempting to earn a CDM credit for a course with an EOC, must take the EOC as the Phase 1 assessment component of the CDM attempt. If the attempt is successful, the score will be banked for appropriate use.

Districts and schools may choose to require, as part of an artifact or as an additional requirement, student performance tasks that replicate classroom situations such as science labs or langauge conversations. For example, for world languages, the school may require a student to demonstrate conversational ability as part of earning the CDM credit as part of the Phase 2 assessment of the CDM process.

It depends. Each organization will handle CDM within its own parameters.

CDM credits are awarded as a “pass” and will appear as such on the student’s transcript. No course grade is received, and the course is not included in the GPA calculation.

As of date, there are plans to ensure CDM will be apparent on the official transcript.

Yes. A student may earn CDM for all courses. If a student did earn CDM for all four courses through the multi-phase assessments, this indicates a clear need for a personalized learning plan. DPI would strongly recommend that the CDM team closely work with students/families and other educators, such as counselors and AIG staff, to ensure appropriate programing is in place for students with this high ability and long-term needs and implications are addressed.

For EOC courses, the EOC will be given during an early testing window to provide the information needed for the Phase 1 assessment. Because EOGs cannot be administered off-grade level, DPI recommends using the previous year’s EOG as an indicator for Phase 1 assessment, but LEAs may choose to add additional local examinations to determine foundational knowledge in the appropriate subject areas. For non-EOC/EOG courses, LEAs will determine the appropriate examination to use. School districts may decide to aggregate all the tests in the district for a course and either choose one or build one for purposes of CDM. Districts may also decide that the school CDM team will determine the assessment to be used for CDM purposes. With the exception of EOC courses, DPI does not currently require all tests or exams to be the same for student purposes. The State Board of Education and Department of Public Instruction expect all teachers and principals to administer tests in a professional manner that adequately tests students on the relevant course standards.

No. CDM should not replace current compacted pathways for groups of students. CDM should not be an additional requirement to determine who will work at a faster rate within the classroom. CDM is meant for individual students who need content replacement and subject acceleration clearly, without any learning of the content in the school setting.