Welcome to a year filled with AZELLA! We had a successful Spring 2025 Reassessment Test administration with over 118,000 students tested. We are confident that this school year will be just as successful because of you. ADE's Assessment AZELLA Team appreciates your dedication and advocacy for the EL students in your schools and across the state. We understand what the job entails, and we are ready to provide you with guidance and assistance throughout the school year as the AZELLA is a year-round assessment with two separate test administrations this school year.

PearsonAccess Next (PAN) is the AZELLA test management system for the 2025-2026 school year. All AZELLA District Test Coordinators are required to have a PAN account. Students must be registered and assigned their appropriate test(s) in PAN before they are tested. The AZELLA DTC will have access to order additional paper testing materials, view published reports, and view the Student Data Files (SDF) for both AZELLA administrations. The online AZELLA tests are controlled through PAN by the test administrator. 

All the 2024-2025 AZELLA Placement Test and Spring 2025 AZELLA Reassessment Test published reports and Student Data Files from PearsonAccess Next (PAN) (district and school-level entities) must be downloaded and saved by September 30, 2025. After this date, these reports and Student Data Files will not be available as Pearson nor ADE keep these. Please refer to the PAN User's Guide document for detailed instructions. You will need to change the Test Administration in PAN to access the reports and Student Data Files that you need.

This document includes important dates and tasks for each AZELLA test administration. It also includes the AZELLA Placement Test Cycle Calendar on pages 6 and 7. We encourage all AZELLA DTCs to print these pages to reference throughout the school year.

This document provides the training requirements for each AZELLA test administration by AZELLA role. AZELLA Placement testing can begin after the DTC, STCs, and Test Administrators complete their requirements associated with the Annual and Placement requirements. 

New AZELLA District Test Coordinators will receive an email from Adobe Learning Manager admin@adobelearningmanager.com, with the subject as, "Welcome to Arizona's Learning Management System: Verification required."

Local Education Agencies (LEAs) may have email filters in place that are not allowing the email to come through to an email inbox. Please contact the LEA's IT Department and provide the following information: 

The 2025-2026 Understand Scoring training and qualifications for the Kindergarten Placement Test Administrators and the Grade 1 and Grades 2-3 Placement Writing Scores are accessed through the AzLMS.

The Understand Scoring content, including the Training, Practice, and Qualification sets have not changed. The secure content of Understand Scoring remains in place. Once users sign into the AzLMS, they will see Understand Scoring in the Catalog. A key code is required to access the 3 different qualifications. They key code is found in the AZELLA Placement grade level training modules.

Please refer to the Eligibility for the AZELLA Placement Test document for a detailed description of the students who require the administration of the Placement Test.

The AZELLA Placement Test Administration Compliance Time Frames explains when students must be administered the AZELLA Placement Test and the parents notified of the results.

All students, regardless of disability, who have a non-English/non-ASL Home Language Survey require an AZELLA test. There are no provisions, in either state or federal law, which would allow the exemption of AZELLA testing for students in special education programs who require an AZELLA test.

The AZELLA DTC must contact the AZELLA Team at ADE about any student who requires a Special Paper Version (SPV) of the test, additional accommodations, or who has a documented disability (for example: deafness or blindness) that precludes assessment in one or more domains of AZELLA prior to administering the AZELLA test by submitting one of the EL/SPED forms. 

One AZELLA Additional Accommodations Request Form submission per student covers all AZELLA test administrations (Placement 2025-2026 and Spring 2026 Reassessment) for the school year. DTCs must wait for ADE's response to the request and further directions from the AZELLA Team prior to administering the AZELLA. Each request form may take up to 4 weeks to process as communication between ADE and the district transpires. 

AZELLA 2025-2026 Placement Test requests - submission deadline is August 29, 2025. Submit early!

AZELLA Spring 2026 Reassessment requests - submission deadline is December 5, 2025.

Please note: For students who are eligible for Alternate Assessments, AZELLA District Test Coordinators must contact their district's Alternate Assessment District Test Coordinator.

*AZELLA Requests for Additional Accommodations for students who require a Braille test for Spring 2026 must be submitted as soon as possible to ensure that the student or students are included in ADE's Braille Kit count.  

Retained Kindergarten students are not permitted to be administered the Kindergarten Placement Test (KPT).

Schools must verify that a new student doesn't already have an SSID before obtaining one through AzEDS. All students who will be administered an AZELLA test must have an active SSID. When creating a student in PearsonAccess Next (PAN) and registering the student for an AZELLA test, an 11-digit SSID must be entered in PAN, which means that leading zeros must be added to the student's SSID number.

When communicating with ADE and the AZELLA Team, DTCs are expected to provide a student's SSID number, not the student's name and date of birth. FERPA does not allow districts, schools, charters, and ADE to include a student's personal identifiable information, such as the full name and date of birth, in written electronic communications when the student's SSID number is known. Please refer to the AZELLA Test Security and Ethics training module for more information about this topic.

The AZELLA online tests are administered through PearsonAccess Next (PAN) and TestNav, both of which are Pearson systems. The Test Administrator manages the student's tests through PAN, and the students complete their tests using TestNav. There are no testing materials, such as a Student Test Book or Answer Document. AZELLA Online Student Sample Tests are available through TestNav.

Arizona Online Sample Tests and Assessment Tutorials:

The AZELLA Student Readiness Tool (SRT) includes a series of mini-lessons that teach students how to navigate their online AZELLA tests and use the various embedded tools within TestNav. The SRT is only accessed through the web version of TestNav. Simply click the link, locate the AZELLA Student Readiness Tool from the Sample Tests and Assessment Tutorials, and click the gray bar. The SRT is available to students, teachers, Test Administrators, DTCs, and families from any computer device with Internet access. Usernames and passwords are not required. 

All AZELLA DTCs must have an ADEConnect account with the role of AZELLA District Test Coordinator. Other district and school staff who require access to the AZELLA (EL) Reports from ADE must have the role of ELL for ADEConnect. Only one person per district can have the role of AZELLA District Test Coordinator. You must contact your ADEConnect Entity Administrator for this. If you already have this role and access to the EL Reports, then you do not need to do anything.

The EL Reports available through the Assessments section of ADEConnect include:

PLEASE NOTE: Districts will be able to access a student's EL70 Report within two calendar weeks prior to their school enrollment date provided the school enrollment has been processed through AzEDS and passed integrity. The date on which access to the student's EL70 Report is granted is 100% dependent on when the district's Student Information System has synchronized the student's school enrollment to AzEDS.

When emailing AZELLA@azed.gov, please:

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