Spring AZELLA Test Training
AZELLA District Test Coordinators and AZELLA staff must complete the required Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Test Training modules from the AZELLA Test Management System (ATMS) prior to testing.
DTCs are expected to create in-person training or a live virtual presentation for AZELLA staff that addresses test security, testing schedules, test materials, as well as the district's policies and procedures for the AZELLA Reassessment Test Administration. This presentation and the sign-in sheets must be made available to ADE upon request. DTCs must also ensure that all their School Test Coordinators and Test Administrators have completed the required ATMS training modules for their role and read the Test Administration Directions (TAD) for the grade levels assigned to them.
Spring 2023 Reassessment Resources
Students Participating in the Spring 2023 AZELLA Testing
For School Year 2022-2023, all Grades K-12 students who have an EL need will need to be administered the Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Test. These are students listed on the EL73 Report associated with EL Groups 1, 2, and 4. Students who are administered the AZELLA Placement Test after January 1, 2023, are not required to participate in the Spring Reassessment Test.
Parent Withdrawn EL students must continue to participate in the annual AZELLA Reassessment until they demonstrate an Overall Proficiency Level of Proficient. Parents may decline EL Services for their student but may not opt out of AZELLA testing.
AZELLA District Test Coordinators are expected to create a list of participating students and provide the lists to the School Test Coordinators and Test Administrators.
Communication between the AZELLA District Test Coordinators, other district staff, and School Test Coordinators is important to make sure only students who are required to be tested are tested. Completed Spring Reassessment Tests will not be invalidated (except for test security issues), even if the student is not eligible.
To be proactive for the Fall 2023 LEA Reason application (reason why the students were not administered the Spring Reassessment Test), ADE suggests that the districts and schools create a mechanism to keep track of students who should have been tested but were not able to be tested and the reason the student(s) were not tested. This will be extremely helpful during the summer months when the LEA Reason application must be completed.
Student Test Registrations in PearsonAccessNext (PAN)
Students must be registered, assigned the correct tests, and added to test Sessions (for online tests) in PearsonAccessNext (PAN) for the Reassessment administration. ADE supplied Pearson a student data file on January 6, and it was used to pre-register students for the test. This student data file did not include all the students who need to take part in these assessments. This means that there are students that need to have their test registration transferred by way of Work Requests in PAN or be manually added to PAN by the AZELLA DTC and STC.
Students may be registered individually using the PAN interface, or districts and schools may use the Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Student Registration File Layout and Template provided by Pearson and found in PAN in the Support >> Documentation section. Pearson provides explicit directions for using this template in the test administration PAN User's Guide. When using the template, it must be saved and uploaded into PAN as a .csv file.
ADE has provided districts and schools with another option - download the EL73 Report using the PAN button. After downloading the file, delete the rows for the students who are already registered in PAN, add the language, SPED and Migrant participation, and the EL program services before saving the file as a .csv file that can be imported into PAN to register additional students. The columns with numbers will need to be formatted correctly and saved before uploading as the "Student Registration Import" file in PAN.
Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Test Administration
- AZELLA Kindergarten and Grade 1 are paper-and-pencil tests with Unit 5 (the Speaking Test) individually administered using a speaker telephone. Units 1-4 may be administered one-on-one, small group, or large group. The Speaking Test must be administered individually.
- AZELLA Grades 2-3 are a hybrid administration. Four of the five test units, Units 1, 2, 3, and 5, are online tests administered through Pearson's TestNav application, while Unit 4 of the test is a paper-and-pencil administration. Only students will have a Username and Password for TestNav. A required Speaking Practice Protocol using the Sample Test must be conducted before the administration of Unit 5 (Speaking) takes place to determine if each student in Grades 2 and 3 can take the test independently using a headset in a small-group administration or if they require a one-on-one administration with the Test Administrator in control of TestNav. Details on the Speaking Practice Protocol are included in the Grades 2-3 Test Administration Directions.
- AZELLA Grades 4-12 are administered online through Pearson's TestNav application. Only students will have a Username and Password for TestNav.
- Please refer to the Technology training module in the Training Management System under the "Annual" tab for additional information about online testing and the TestNav application.
AZELLA Sample Tests
It is strongly recommended that all students taking the online Spring Reassessment Test and Test Administrators prepare for the test by taking the Sample Tests. AZELLA online Sample Tests (for Grades 2-12) are available in TestNav. The online AZELLA Sample Tests can be accessed through the web browser version of TestNav at https://az.testnav.com/client/index.html or through the dedicated application that must be downloaded on all the computers and electronic devices that will be used for testing. A Username and Password are not needed for the Sample Tests, which are designed to provide students an opportunity to familiarize with the platform, item types, and format of the test. The digital kits (Student Test Book, audio files, and Teacher's Edition) of the Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grades 2-3 Sample Test, as well as the Grades 4-12 Teacher's Edition are now available for downloading at https://www.azed.gov/assessment/azella.
Testing Materials and Additional Orders
Districts and Charters who completed the Reassessment Participation Counts in December 2022 received an initial shipment of Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grades 2-3 Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Test materials during the weeks of January 17 and January 23, 2023. This included district and school test materials, return shipping materials, the Test Coordinator's Manual (separate shipment), and Pre-ID Labels for those Grades K-3 students who were on the EL73 Report as of January 6, 2023.
If the Reassessment Test paper materials received are not enough to test all students who need to be administered the test, the DTC may place an additional order for the district in PAN during the Additional Order window. Districts and Charters who serve Grades K-3 EL students and did not receive an initial shipment of the Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grades 2-3 Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Test materials are expected to submit an order through PAN for the necessary testing materials. ADE will review and approve additional orders. KEEP all the Pearson boxes to reuse for return shipping.
The Additional Order window closes on March 3, 2023, for testing materials. Return shipping materials (labels, boxes, etc.) will continue to be available to order through PAN until March 17, 2023.
ADE and Pearson will be ordering and shipping all Special Paper Version (SPV), Large Print, and Braille test materials to districts that have been approved for these materials.
Pre-ID Labels
The Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grades 2-3 Reassessment Pre-ID Label files were generated by Pearson based on the EL73 report from January 6, 2023 and shipped to districts during the week of January 17, 2023. The Pre-ID Labels were shipped separately from the boxes of paper testing materials. Not all Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grades 2-3 students who must be tested received a Pre-ID Label. Additional Pre-ID Labels cannot be ordered. The student data grid on the back cover of the student test book must be bubbled in by an adult for those Grades K-3 students who did not receive a Pre-ID Label and for those labels that are incorrect and cannot be used.
Please refer to the DTC-STC training module and the Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Test Coordinator's Manual for explicit information about Pre-ID Labels.
Special Education EL Students
There are no provisions, in either state or federal law, that would allow the exemption of AZELLA testing for eligible students who are enrolled in the Special Education program and require an AZELLA test. An IEP Team, which must include a Language Acquisition Specialist, may NOT exempt a student from participating in AZELLA testing.
All dually enrolled EL/SPED students must be provided the opportunity to make an earnest attempt at all the AZELLA domains tested. Review the Universal Test Administration Conditions and the approved Arizona Accommodations Manual - AZELLA Accommodations for students with disabilities document.
Districts should have submitted requests for EL students who have an IEP or 504 Plan which require additional accommodations, including large print, Special Paper Version (SPV), and Braille, other than those pre-approved by ADE during the Fall 2022 semester. ADE Assessment has responded to AZELLA DTCs with approved accommodations. If the DTC has not received a response, please ensure that ADE has not asked the district for additional information. Not all accommodations are appropriate for AZELLA testing. Accommodations that are allowable for other statewide assessments might not be allowable for AZELLA.
Currently, ADE is only accepting requests for additional accommodations for newly enrolled and transfer students since the deadline to submit requests was August 30, 2022.
For new additional accommodations requests submitted for newly enrolled and transfer students, ADE will respond to the DTC with an approval and/or requests for additional information. Do not administer an AZELLA test to the student for whom the request has been submitted until ADE responds to the request.
Students Transferred with an EL Need
The Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Student Transferred with an EL Need form must be used throughout the Reassessment Test window. This form is for all students with an EL need (K-12) who transfer during the Spring Reassessment Test window. This form helps the DTC determine if the student needs to be administered a Placement Test, or the Reassessment Test, or does not need to be tested with either AZELLA test.
- The DTC must submit this form through the secure submission application ONLY for EL transfer students who are enrolled in Kindergarten and Grades 1, 2, and 3 and have started the Reassessment Test at their prior school but did not finish it.
- Do NOT submit this form to ADE when a student has NOT STARTED the test.
- Do NOT submit this form to ADE when a student has COMPLETED the entire test at their previous school.
- Do NOT submit this form for students in Grades 4-12.
Testing Irregularities and Test Security and Ethics Violations
Any student test irregularities, test administration errors, and test security breaches must be reported to the AZELLA State Test Coordinator immediately by the AZELLA DTC. Student testing irregularities should be submitted through PAN. Test administration and test security irregularities must be submitted using the appropriate ADE online form. These forms are posted on the Assessment AZELLA District Test Coordinator webpage in the AZELLA Test Security and Irregularities Forms section.
Returning Spring Testing Materials to Pearson
The Spring 2023 Reassessment materials must be returned to the Pearson warehouses as Scorable or Nonscorable at the close of the Reassessment Test window. Pearson has provided prepaid UPS shipping labels for Scorable and Nonscorable testing materials. It is critical to ensure that the Scorable and Nonscorable materials have the correct shipping labels adhered to the boxes. Explicit directions for packing the boxes for return shipping is included in the Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Test Coordinator's Manual (TCM). Materials must be picked up and shipped out no later than March 24, 2023.
- Districts will be responsible for paying for overnight shipping for AZELLA testing materials that are not shipped out by March 24, 2023.
- Pearson must receive each district's Scorable materials no later than March 30, 2023. Student test books received after March 30 will not be scored.
- The tracking numbers can be reported to ADE to ensure that Pearson receives the district's boxes no later than March 30, 2023. You may use the AZELLA Spring 2023 Reassessment Return Shipping Tracking Numbers application to submit information for each box that is returned to Pearson.
Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment Test Reports
The Spring 2023 AZELLA Reassessment reports will be available electronically (PDF) through PAN after Standard Setting has been completed during Summer 2023. Paper reports will be received at the district offices one week after the electronic results have been published. The OnDemand Score Reports are only available for the Placement Test, not for the Spring AZELLA Reassessment Test.
