Welcome to the new year of AZELLA! We appreciate your patience and understanding while AZELLA was under construction. Now that we are up and running, we anticipate a few speed bumps, but the road will become smoother as we move forward and learn the new systems together. 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 (2) separate test administrations this school year.

The AZELLA Test Administration Calendar for School Year 2026-2027 is available on the AZELLA DTC website.

This document includes important dates and tasks for each AZELLA test administration. It also includes the AZELLA Placement Test Cycle Calendar which helps DTCs identify when a student's EL services will pass integrity based on an AZELLA Placement - Dynamic Screener test record. We encourage all AZELLA DTCs to print these pages for reference throughout the school year. This calendar will be updated regularly. Please ensure you are viewing the most current version as noted on the website. 

The first day of school is when the AZELLA Placement - Dynamic Screener testing is required to begin.

Eligible students will be administered the AZELLA Placement - Dynamic Screener which is a Kindergarten through Grade 12 online assessment.

EL Group 8 students are students who have previously been identified as having an EL need but do not have an English language proficiency (ELP) record that identifies their current EL program eligibility status. These are students identified as EL Group 8 on the EL73 - EL Student Need Report and those with a red font message on their EL70 - ELP Student Test History Report. The EL Group 8 students have their own Placement test and must be identified as Group 8 in TIDE with their test registration.

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

The AZELLA Placement - Dynamic Screener Logic Flow Chart is a quick, at-a-glance resource for identifying students who need to be tested.

The AZELLA Placement - Dynamic Screener Administration Compliance Time Frames explain when students must be administered the AZELLA Placement - Dynamic Screener and the parents notified of the results.

Cambium Assessment, Inc (CAI) provides a suite of independent and interconnected web-based programs and tools for AZELLA through a Single Sign On (SSO) system. AZELLA District Test Coordinators and other authorized personnel will require a login and password. Those who have had access to Cambium's Test Information Distribution Engine (TIDE) in a prior school year may be able to use their same credentials to gain access. ADE and Cambium are responsible for establishing the AZELLA District Test Coordinators' accounts, and then the DTCs must create their AZELLA staff accounts so that they can complete AZELLA ELPA21 training, access TIDE for test administration, and be able to view reports at the district -and school-level entities.

There is a plethora of valuable resources available in the AZ Portal. Time-sensitive announcements are included on the homepage and should be reviewed regularly. Information for Test Administrators and Technology Coordinators is at the forefront of this website. Technology Coordinators will also find the Secure Browsers important information. The ClearCourse Learning Management System plays a key role for AZELLA training and is available in the AZ Portal.

TIDE is the all-in-one secure control center for all test registration and administration tasks that users are required to prepare for student testing. TIDE is the main hub for managing entities in the test administration process, including users, students, rosters, and organizational components, such as districts and schools.

TIDE's interface includes administrative tasks that must be performed before testing begins and the tasks performed while tests are being administered to students. 

Cambium provides a secure test environment that strictly controls access to test materials and protects testing data throughout transmission and administration. The TDS is a full web-based application that supports secure delivery of online tests to students. 

The Centralized Reporting System (CRS) is an online reporting portal that provides districts and schools with access to student results such as the Individual Student Reports (ISR), summary reports, aggregate reports, and downloadable Student Data Files (SDF). Two printed copies of the ISR for the AZELLA Placement - Dynamic Screener and the Spring 2027 AZELLA Reassessment - Summative will be sent to districts. One copy must be kept in the students' cumulative files, and the other copy must be provided to the parent or guardian. The electronic ISR may be printed in English or in one of the other 15 languages that the CRS provides. 

There are four parts to the AZELLA training. All AZELLA DTCs, STCs, and TAs are expected to complete their training and sign the 2026-2027 AZELLA Test Security Agreement prior to the administration of any AZELLA tests. These parts are explained in more detail on the AZELLA DTC website. 

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 English language proficiency testing for students enrolled in special education programs and who require an AZELLA test.

Accommodated Forms for the Placement - Dynamic Screener and the Spring Reassessment - Summative

The AZELLA Additional Accommodations Request Form must be submitted to request an accommodated form, additional accommodations, or a domain exception for a student who has a documented sensory disability (for example: deafness or blindness) that precludes assessment in one or more domains of AZELLA prior to administering the AZELLA. 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. 

A separate accommodation request form must be used when an eligible student's only additional accommodation is to have additional time to administer the AZELLA. This form is submitted by the school and can accommodate up to 15 students in one submission.

Please note: For students who are eligible for Alternate Assessments and need an AZELLA, the AZELLA District Test Coordinator must contact their district's Alternate Assessment District Test Coordinator because these students must be administered the Alt ELPA, not the AZELLA.

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

PLEASE NOTE: Districts will be able to access a student's EL70 report within two (2) 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.

All the 2025-2026 AZELLA Placement Test and Spring 2026 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, 2026. 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.

The most efficient way to communicate with the AZELLA Team (Gabbie, Sandra, Karen, and Brenda) at ADE is by email. The AZELLA Team strives to respond to emails within one business day unless further research is needed.

When e-mailing AZELLA@azed.gov, please:

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