It has finally started cooling down, and we are ramping up final test administration tasks in preparation for the Spring test windows. Be sure to share this Assessments Bulletin with your teachers, administrators, and others who will find this information useful.

On September 25, 2023, the Arizona State Board of Education approved to close rulemaking for R7-2-318, which includes the Grade 3 MOWR opportunity to retest. ADE is working on logistics now. There will be a separate test window at the end of the summer/early July for "retesting" any student that did not meet the MOWR indicator. LEAs will administer the reading test only. We are looking to have on-demand results available as well.

Here's wishing you all restful and spirited holiday breaks!

We have two committees coming up soon! We will be working with educators and stakeholders to review and approve AASA ELA passages for Spring 2025. The committee will confirm alignment and appropriateness for inclusion in the test, and we will also be working with community stakeholders to conduct a bias and sensitivity review for the AASA ELA passages. Please complete an Educator Committee Application form if you are interested in participating in our committees!

Please watch for communications from the Achievement Assessments team to increase in frequency over the coming weeks and months as we prepare for the Spring 2024 test windows. Communications will be sent to Achievement District Test Coordinators (DTCs) regarding any testing updates as well as reminders of deadlines and tasks to be completed in preparation for testing. These communications will also be posted on the Achievement District Test Coordinator webpage for quick reference. Please share these communications with other staff in your district or charter, as applicable. DTC emails will be organized as follows to assist you with finding the information you need for your sites.

ADE, Pearson, and ACT are working diligently to complete Test Coordinator's Manuals and Test Administration Directions for each of the Statewide Achievement Assessments. Look for each of these manuals coming soon!

Testing windows for the Spring 2024 Achievement tests are included in the table above, as well as in the Assessments Overview 2023-2024 and the Detailed Testing Calendar. The Detailed Testing Calendar also provides estimated times for each test unit of the AASA and AzSCI as well as time limits for ACT Aspire and ACT test sections.  

The Achievement Assessments Accommodations Manual has been updated and posted on our Accessibility webpage. Please remind your staff to review the Accommodations Manual as they work on IEPs and 504 Plans this school year. All instructional accommodations that will be routinely used should be included in the student's plan. Any accommodations selected for statewide testing must also be used throughout the year for instruction in class and must also be documented in the IEP or 504 Plan. Most accommodations used in the classroom can also be used for testing, so it is important to become familiar with the testing accommodations by using the Sample Tests.

Arizona offers three tests formats to meet the needs of students who cannot access the test content through computer-based testing: braille, large print, and regular print paper tests. Requests for Special Paper Version (SPV) tests for AASA, AzSCI, and ACT Aspire must be submitted to ADE for review and approval using this secure online form: https://www.azed.gov/assessment/spv24. Additional information is available in the SPV Request Process Quick Guide. SPV test requests must be submitted to ADE by February 23, 2024.

Requests for additional accommodations must be submitted to ADE for review and approval by February 23, 2024, using this secure online form: https://www.azed.gov/assessment/achievement_aa_fy24. Additional information is available in the Additional Accommodations Request Process Quick Guide.

The Additional Accommodations Request Form should be used to request the American Sign Language (ASL) form of the test; hearing devices requiring a Bluetooth connection; a computer-based test or technology needed when testing in a paper-based testing school; assistive technology needed by the student during testing if not included in the Achievement Assessments Accommodations Manual; or testing accommodations requested due to a student injury, as described in the Achievement Assessments Accommodations Manual.

Additional Accommodations requests should not include Universal Test Administration Conditions, Universal Tools, or other accommodations identified as allowable in the Achievement Assessments Accommodations Manual. 

AASA is the statewide achievement assessment for Grades 3-8 in ELA and Math.

All Grade 3 students will participate in an ELA Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) test unit. A decision has been made to gather additional information on the ORF items and the impact to the Move On When Reading (MOWR) indicator this year. The Grade 3 ELA ORF test items will not be included in a student's score for the Spring 2024 AASA test administration. 

Both computer-based testing schools and paper-based testing schools will administer the ORF test unit online in TestNav. The online ORF test unit may be administered in small groups with a maximum of six students testing simultaneously in a classroom or computer lab environment. Additional resources, linked below, are available on the AASA webpage under "Grade 3 Oral Reading Fluency". 

PearsonAccess Next (PAN), https://az.pearsonaccessnext.com/, will open for the Spring 2024 AASA test administration on December 20, 2023. On that date, Achievement District Test Coordinators will receive access and can begin the tasks of verifying their contact information and shipping address and adding other users in the district or charter to PAN. If any changes are needed to the contact information and shipping address listed in PAN, please send an email to AASA@azed.gov no later than February 16, 2024 to ensure that AASA materials are shipped and delivered appropriately. 

For Spring 2024 AASA, Achievement District Test Coordinators will enter participation counts in PAN and select the materials due-in-district window for the delivery of test materials. The participation counts entered in PAN for grades 3-8 during the January 8-19, 2024 window will determine the number of manuals (Test Coordinator's Manuals and Test Administration Directions) shipped for both computer-based testing and paper-based testing schools. It will also determine the number of paper-based test booklets shipped for paper-based testing schools. 

There are two delivery windows available for the initial shipment of AASA materials. Achievement District Test Coordinators will need to select the preferred window for their district or charter in PAN no later than January 19, 2024. Directions for making this selection will be included in the PAN User's Guide. 

The last day to revise student enrollments in AzEDS prior to ADE's upload of students for AASA is January 24, 2024. ADE will extract student information from AzEDS and upload the data to PAN. This upload will be visible in PAN on February 5, 2024. 

The AzSCI is a computer-based assessment and is comprised of three test units. Each test unit is estimated to take 60-90 minutes each. If more than one test unit is administered on the same day, there must be a significant break of 15-45 minutes between each test unit. 

PearsonAccess Next (PAN), https://az.pearsonaccessnext.com/, will open for the Spring 2024 AzSCI test administration on January 31, 2024. On that date, Achievement District Test Coordinators will receive access and can begin the tasks of verifying their contact information and shipping address and adding other users in the district or charter to PAN. Users who need PAN access for both the AASA and AzSCI test administrations will need to be added separately for the two assessments. 

The last day to revise student enrollments in AzEDS prior to ADE's upload of students is February 14, 2024. ADE will extract student information from AzEDS and upload the data to PAN. The upload will be visible in PAN on February 19, 2024.

While ACT Aspire has been discontinued at a national level, Arizona will continue to administer the ACT Aspire Early High School assessment to students in the 9th grade cohort for the life of our contract. In Spring 2024, ACT Aspire will be administered to students in Cohort 2027. 

Support for Arizona's ACT Aspire test administration has now transferred from ACT to Pearson. Pearson customer support can be contacted for ACT Aspire questions at the same phone number used for AASA and AzSCI customer support: 1-888-705-9421. Select option 4 for ACT Aspire.

For Spring 2024, the Arizona ACT Aspire webpage will continue to be the source for information and resources related to ACT Aspire. 

The ACT-managed PearsonAccess Next portal (aspire.act.org), which was used for the Spring 2022 and Spring 2023 test administrations, is now closed. A new Pearson-managed PearsonAccess Next portal (https://aspire.pearsonaccessnext.com/) will open on November 8, 2023 with the historical ACT Aspire student testing data. This new site will then open for the Spring 2024 test administration tasks to begin on January 22, 2024.

The last day to revise enrollments in AzEDS prior to ADE's upload of students is January 23, 2024. ADE will extract student information from AzEDS and upload the data to PAN. This upload will be visible in PAN on January 29, 2024.

Districts and charters with Grade 11 / Cohort 2025 students may utilize both published Arizona ACT test windows in order to assess all Cohort 2025 students. Schools are encouraged to administer ACT during the first test window and may also used the second test window, as needed, to complete any makeup testing.

There is only one ACT standard paper test date in each testing window. Additional online ACT test days have been added to each test window this year, for a total of nine online test days in each window. Schools administering ACT on paper may also use the online test dates for makeup testing. Any schools that choose to administer the ACT during only the second test window will not have an additional ACT test window to use for makeup testing. 

ACT's PearsonAccess Next (PAN) site will go live for the Spring 2024 administration on November 6, 2023. Achievement District Test Coordinators with Grade 11 / Cohort 2025 students will receive login information on that date and can then begin completing tasks in PAN.

The following tasks must be completed November 6, 2023 - December 8, 2023: select test dates, select materials shipping dates, and verify shipping address. More information is available in Step 1: Orientation on the ACT-hosted website for Arizona.

When selecting test dates in PAN, online or paper testing will also be selected. This selection in PAN must match what was submitted to ADE through the ADEConnect Testing Mode Selection Application, which closed October 13, 2023. Do not select ACT paper testing in PAN if you did not submit a paper testing request in ADEConnect. The information in the ADEConnect Testing Mode Selection Application will be the official testing mode for the school. 

Beginning November 6, 2023, Achievement District Test Coordinators can create user accounts for others in the district or charter. Achievement District Test Coordinators are encouraged to add a School Test Coordinator for each site. ACT will send communications to School Test Coordinators that have been added in PearsonAccess Next as well as to Achievement District Test Coordinators. 

ACT has scheduled three webinars specifically for Arizona test coordinators. Both District and School Test Coordinators should plan to attend each webinar or view the recording afterwards. Each webinar recording will be posted on the ACT-hosted website for Arizona. 

Test Administration #1 - November 8, 2023, 9:00am - 10:00am (Registration Link)

Accommodations - November 15, 2023, 9:00am - 10:00am (Registration Link)

Test Administration #2 - February 21, 2024, 9:00am - 10:00am (Registration Link)

ACT accommodations requests must be submitted directly to ACT through ACT's Test Accessibility and Accommodations (TAA) system. The TAA system is now open for accommodations requests for Spring 2024. The initial deadline for submitting ACT accommodations and support requests is February 2, 2024. Please note this is a firm deadline, so please submit all requests early.

ACT has provided the Parent Consent to Release Information form, which should be utilized to obtain parent consent for submitting ACT accommodations requests. However, please do not miss the initial February 2nd deadline to submit ACT accommodations requests. If you have not yet obtained the signed parent consent form prior to the February 2nd initial submission deadline, you can continue working to obtain the signed parent consent form even after the initial request has been submitted to ACT, but you cannot receive a deadline extension past February 2nd for initial requests. If you have questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us via the Testing inbox. Not submitting and providing identified accommodations can be considered denial of FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education). 

More information about ACT's accommodations request process can be found on the ACT-hosted website for Arizona (Step 3: Accommodation). In addition, ACT has scheduled a series of Accommodations Office Hours beginning November 14, 2023. Please visit the Accommodations Office Hours registration page for additional information. 

ADE will upload students for ACT testing in PearsonAccess Next (PAN). The last day to revise enrollments in AzEDS prior to ADE's extraction of student data is January 23, 2024. ADE's upload of students will be visible in PAN no later than January 29, 2024.

All sites administering the online ACT test are encouraged to complete a mock administration. If performed under conditions similar to test day, a mock administration provides an indication of how your technical infrastructure and testing devices will interact with the testing software during a live administration. This task can be completed beginning December 18, 2023 and should be completed no later than February 14, 2024 to prepare for online testing. More information is available in Step 2: Configuration on the ACT website. 

The Arizona State Board of Education has approved a process whereby an ACT score replacement request may be granted for highly performing students who demonstrate competency prior to the statewide test window. When a Cohort 2025 student has an ACT test score obtained on a national test date within their Junior / 11th grade school year that meets or exceeds Arizona's ACT cut scores for the content areas of ELA and Math, the national test date score report may be used to replace the statewide ACT assessment. 

The ACT score replacement request is intended for students with high scores who are concerned that an additional test score would have an impact to their post-secondary opportunities and should be used sparingly. The score replacement allows the student to use the score obtained on a national test date rather than Arizona's statewide assessment date for accountability purposes, subject to ADE's review and approval, using the following criteria: 

The deadline for schools, districts, or charters to submit ACT score replacement requests to ADE is March 22, 2024. Requests must be submitted using the secure online form, and a copy of the student's ACT score report (either the student or the high school copy) must be uploaded with the request. A signed parent consent form must also be uploaded with the request. ADE's Assessment team will confirm the score report with ACT and will respond to the Achievement District Test Coordinator regarding the final decision.  

For questions about AASA, please contact us at AASA@azed.gov.

For questions about AzSCI, please contact us at AzSCI@azed.gov.

For questions about ACT or ACT Aspire, please contact us at Testing@azed.gov.

As a new assessment, we conducted a standard setting to set cut scores for Alt ELPA. This process delayed the Alt ELPA reporting window this year. The Alt ELPA reporting window opened on October 23, 2023. The Alt ELPA reporting portal does not close. More information was sent to Alternate Assessment Test Coordinators. 

IEP teams determine eligibility for alternate assessments. In Arizona, if a student is eligible for one alternate assessment, the student is eligible for all alternate assessments. Therefore, eligibility determination is the same for Alt ELPA and MSAA. IEP teams should consider test administrations that will occur during the student's IEP year and include suitable instructional time before test administration windows if a student's eligibility has changed. For example, an IEP team that determines eligibility before the close of the Student Selector Application in the Fall shall carefully consider the instructional time prior to test administration before determining if the student will participate in an Alternate Assessment for that same year.

An IEP team making the determination in the Spring should be documenting the preparation for the assessment during the following school year. Students must be identified during the Student Selection window (October 2 - November 30, 2023) to participate in the administration of the MSAA. To add students to the alternate assessment systems after the Student Selector Application closes, the Alternate Assessment Test Coordinator must submit a letter signed by the Alternate Assessment Test Coordinator and the test coordinator's supervisor. The letter will include:

It is the responsibility of the test coordinator to write the letter. Please notify your teachers early so that they are prepared to give you their list of eligible students. 

To meet criteria for alternate assessments, the student must meet all participation criteria descriptors. IEP teams should discuss evidence that supports each criterion in this order:

NOTE: The Alternate Assessment Participation Guidelines and Eligibility Determination document was revised July 2023. Updates include clarification for Alt ELPA participation and a better format for documenting evidence that allows for electronic and printed versions. This updated form is required for IEP meetings when the alternate assessment eligibility is discussed. The eligibility criteria have not changed. IEP teams do not need to amend the IEP for students who were already determined eligible using the previous form.  

Students in all grades may be determined eligible for alternate assessments. Eligibility determination is needed if any students are not taking district or state-required assessments. It is especially important to continue to identify eligible students in Grade 9 and select them in the Student Selector Application. The Arizona Department of Education is working on a solution to the accountability implications of not testing students eligible on content area alternate assessments in Grade 9 and has made the Accountability team aware of the issue. 

The Student Selector Application in ADEConnect is available until November 30, 2023 for identifying students for alternate assessments this school year. The IEP team must determine eligibility for alternate assessment before the close of the Student Selector Application to allow for suitable instructional time before administration. Only the Alternate Assessment Test Coordinator (TCs) can identify the eligible students for alternate assessments in the application. There is only one list for both MSAA and Alt ELPA.

There are currently over 700 students registered in the Student Selector Application. Please continue to identify your students in the application no later than November 30.

Students who are eligible for alternate assessments will also be uploaded in PearsonAccess Next (PAN) for all Statewide Assessments, including AZELLA. Students eligible for any Alternate Assessments (MSAA or Alt ELPA) should remain untested in the PAN system. The Alternate Assessment Test Coordinator must communicate with the AZELLA and Achievement Test Coordinators to ensure students are administered the correct assessment. 

Alternate Assessment Test Coordinators will use the Alternate Assessment Application in ADEConnect to create test administrator lists. The Test Administrator List in ADEConnect is retained from last year. Test Coordinators can update these lists as needed through January 5, 2024. Please add all test administrators to each school using the "Test Administrator List" in the "Administration" drop down. Select the school and add the first name, last name, and email address. Test administrator accounts will be created in the Cambium portal for Alt ELPA and MSAA systems based on these lists. Alternate Assessment Test Coordinators will also be able to create accounts in each of the platforms when they open. 

Please ensure that the appropriate instructional and testing accommodations are included as part of IEP meetings (e.g., scribe, paper versions, etc.). A paper version/administration of the MSAA is an accommodation and must be documented in the student's IEP. Be sure to also document accommodations that will be needed for each domain for Alt ELPA. More information on accommodations for alternate assessments can be found in the MSAA Accommodations Manual and Alt ELPA Accommodations Manual posted on our website.

We are in our second year of administering our Alternate English Language Proficiency Assessment, Alt ELPA. For more information, go to the ADE Alt ELPA webpage: https://www.azed.gov/assessment/altELPA or attend the Assessment Friday Focus Webinar on Alt ELPA on November 7, 2023.

If an EL student is eligible to participate in Alt ELPA, they will not participate in the AZELLA Reassessment. This assessment will determine EL services or if a student is proficient in the English language acquisition based on Alternate English Language Proficiency Standards. The test administration window is January 30 - March 15, 2024. More information can be found on the Cambium portal, including manuals, user's guides, and practice tests.

The Alt ELPA must be administered by a familiar test administrator to ensure the student's mode(s) of communication are understood during testing. Typically, it will be administered by the student's teacher who also administers the MSAA. Please contact us with additional questions about who can administer this assessment.

The Alt ELPA training will be available in the LMS late November or early December. Accounts are retained every year. Please let us know if you need the instructions to set up new accounts. The password is: elpa21.

Note: ADE is not able to update the training portal. We are working with the vendor to change the names and contact information for the test coordinators that are listed. The contact information does not impact the ability to create an account or access the training.

The MSAA system is purged every year. New test coordinator and test administrator accounts will be created no later than February 25, 2024. The MSAA system will open for training on February 26, 2024. The test window opens on March 11, 2024.

Under federal regulation, the state is required to "provide appropriate oversight to each LEA that the State anticipates will assess more than 1.0% of its assessed students...using alternate assessments aligned with alternate academic achievement standards." An LEA may test students who qualify for Alternate Assessment, even if that participation means that the LEA will exceed 1%. This is then addressed through the monitoring process.

We are calculating the participation rates for alternate assessment. Notifications for LEAs that exceeded 1% participation in the Spring 2023 administration will be sent soon. We want to thank all our Alternate Assessment Test Coordinators and IEP teams for their efforts in following the eligibility criteria to make assessment decisions for your students. 

ADE must take additional steps to support and provide appropriate oversight to each LEA that assessed more than 1% of its assessed students in a given subject in a school year using an alternate assessment aligned with alternate academic achievement standards. This means that we will continue our monitoring through the 1% Threshold Application in ADEConnect and submission of Action Plans.

Two notifications will be sent to Alternate Assessment Test Coordinators if the LEA exceeded the 1% Threshold. The first notification will include the instructions for Alternate Assessment Test Coordinators to provide student information in the 1% Threshold Application. Upon review of the student information, each LEA will be placed into a tier level of support. A second notification will be sent with instructions on submitting an Action Plan based on the tier level and addressing addressing disproportionality if applicable. 

Please continue to use the MSAA States website to access resources for families, educators, and students. Resources range from writing rubrics, sample items, Core Content Connectors, the Learning Progression Frameworks, and more. This website contains information for all partners that participate in the consortium. Please do not use the website to contact the Alternate Assessment Unit as the communication is not directly sent to the Alternate Assessment Team.

The TIES Center has published several resources to support teachers of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities within any Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). The website includes general resources for parents and provides guidance for implementing inclusion practices. We encourage you to check out these resources and the other great support documents the TIES Center has available.

If you have any questions about Alternate Assessments, please contact us at AlternateAssessment@azed.gov.

Newly enrolled Kindergarten students, who have never been enrolled in school anywhere in the U.S. (Grade K), must be administered the KPT within 2 calendar weeks from the student's school enrollment date. 

If the address needs to be changed, the AZELLA DTC must send an email to AZELLA@azed.gov with the District/Charter entity number and the correct address. If a shipping address was changed for the Placement administration, the new addresses will not be included for the Reassessment administration. Pearson can only ship to district and charter offices and campuses. The vendor will never send materials to P.O. boxes or personal and other business addresses.

This is also the time to notify ADE of all private schools that receive federal funds (Title I and/or Title III) under the public district that will be participating in the Reassessment Test. Please provide ADE's AZELLA Team with the name(s) of the schools and their entity ID numbers. ADE will add these entities to PAN for the Reassessment administration. 

The AZELLA DTC must ensure that school enrollments and EL program services have been synchronized from the school's Student Information System (SIS) to AzEDS by January 4, 2024, and correct any Placement Test records that are in the AZELLA corrections application by January 4. This data needs to be complete because ADE will be extracting all Kindergarten through Grade 12 EL student data on January 5 to send to Pearson for pre-registering these students for the Spring Reassessment Test and printing K-3 Pre-ID labels.

DTCs should mark their calendar for January 5 and January 19, 2024, as a reminder to print the EL73 - EL Student Needs Reports. These reports need to be compared to identify which students have not been registered for the Reassessment Test in the schools and need to be added to PAN or transferred (Work Request) in PAN from a different school.

Students who are not included in the January 5 extracted student data file will require the DTC and STCs to add these students to PAN and register them for the Reassessment Test.

Not all K-3 students will receive a Pre-ID Label. Those who don't receive a label and for those whose labels are incorrect, the students must still be tested. The students must be added to PAN and the Student Data Demographic Grid on the back cover of the students' paper test books must be completed by the DTC and STCs prior to the students testing.

The Unit 5 Speaking test for Kindergarten and Grade 1 students will be administered using TestNav to play the questions and capture the student's responses. This is a one-on-one test administration that requires the use of an electronic testing device and an external unidirectional microphone. Explicit information about this and a new Speaking Demonstration video will be available in the Spring Reassessment training modules. 

The most efficient way to communicate with the AZELLA Team at ADE is by email.

When emailing AZELLA@azed.gov, please: 

If you have any questions about AZELLA, please contact us at AZELLA@azed.gov.

If you have any questions, please contact Mr. Gary McIlvaine, AZ Director of NAEP and International Assessments:

602-364-1538