AZELLA Placement Test
Administered through May 15, 2024 to the following students:
- New-to-Arizona students with a Home Language Survey (HLS) that includes a language other than English and American Sign Language (ASL) and who do not have an AZELLA test history
- Students associated with EL Group 8 on the EL73 - EL Student Need Report
- Students with a red font message on their EL70 - EL Student Test History Report
Online Schools, Private Schools, and Concurrent Enrollments
The AZELLA Placement and the Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Test must be administered at a brick-and-mortar district or school building. The majority of the students associated with an online learning program are administered the AZELLA at their home school by appointment. The online school may need to be added to the home school Test Administrator's PearsonAccess Next (PAN) account so that they can access the administration of those students' tests.
Private schools associated with public school districts may need to be added to PAN for the AZELLA test administrations. In such situations, the AZELLA DTC must notify ADE's AZELLA Team that a private school needs to be added to PAN. To this effect, the private school must have an Entity ID number from ADE. These private schools will need to work with the public school district for AZELLA testing.
It is the responsibility of the home school district to administer the AZELLA tests to students who have concurrent school enrollments. For the Spring 2024 Reassessment Test, these students may not have been pre-registered for the test; therefore, the home district must add the student to PAN for AZELLA testing.
Kindergarten Students - Placement Test v. Reassessment Test
Kindergarten students who enroll with a language other than English or ASL on their Home Language Survey (HLS) must be administered the Kindergarten Placement Test (KPT). The set of criteria below is intended to help local educational agencies (LEAs) meet federal and state requirements and avoid under-identification of students with a language acquisition need.
Criterion 1: Kindergarten students who are administered the KPT during the required testing timeline and within their first 59 cumulative days of school (at an Arizona school or any other school within the United States), and receive a Proficient result on the KPT, are Initially Fluent English Proficient (IFEP) and not eligible for further AZELLA testing without a referral form. Those students who receive a less than Proficient result must be administered the Kindergarten Spring Reassessment Test.
Criterion 2: Kindergarten students who are administered the KPT after they have been receiving instruction at a school in the United States for a cumulative 60 days or more and prior to the close of the Spring AZELLA Reassessment Test window, must also be administered the Spring Reassessment Test regardless of the Overall Proficiency Level obtained with the KPT.
Criterion 3: New Kindergarten students who have not had 60 cumulative days of instruction in the United States and have a language other than English on their HLS are enrolled during the Spring Reassessment Test window. They must be administered the KPT within 2 calendar weeks of their school enrollment date. These students may come from another Arizona school, from another state within the United States, or from another country. Administering a Kindergarten Reassessment Test to those students who receive a score of less than Proficient in the KPT is optional.
Spring AZELLA Reassessment Test Administration Window
- January 29 - March 15, 2024 (7 weeks)
Spring 2024 Reassessment Test Results
- Electronic: May 2, 2024
- Paper: May 15, 2024
Spring AZELLA Test Training
AZELLA District Test Coordinators (DTCs) and AZELLA staff must complete the required Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Test training modules from the Arizona Learning Management System (AzLMS) prior to testing. You may refer to the AZELLA Role Matrix document listed below. ADE highly recommends that users download the accompanying PowerPoints and Transcripts associated with each training module for easy informational references throughout the test administration.
In addition to the training courses in the AzLMS, AZELLA DTCs are expected to create an 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. The DTC-created Reassessment training presentation is NOT intended to be in a "train-the-trainer" (DTC-to-School Test Coordinator (STC)) format. Rather, DTCs are required to deliver their presentation to all AZELLA staff. This presentation and the sign-in sheets must be made available to ADE upon request. AZELLA DTCs must also ensure that all their STCs and Test Administrators have completed the required AzLMS Annual and Reassessment courses for their role and grade levels and read the Test Administration Directions (TAD) for the grade levels assigned to them.
Spring 2024 Reassessment Resources
Students Participating in the Spring 2024 AZELLA Testing
For School Year 2023-2024, all Grades K-12 students who have an EL need will need to be administered the Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Test. These are students listed on the EL73 Report associated with EL Groups 1, 2, and 4. Grade 1-12 students who are administered the AZELLA Placement Test after January 1, 2024 are not required to participate in the Spring Reassessment Test. Be mindful of dual label students who are eligible to participate in Alternate Assessments. If a student received an overall proficiency level (OPL) of Proficient during the Spring 2023 Alt ELPA, this student no longer has an EL need and should not be administered an English Language Proficiency Assessment. If a student took Alt ELPA in Spring 2023 and received an OPL of less than Proficient, they might continue to be eligible to participate in Alt ELPA and must be administered Alt ELPA this spring.
Parent Withdrawn EL students must continue to participate in the annual AZELLA Reassessment until they demonstrate an OPL of Proficient. Parents may decline EL services for their student, but students may not opt out of AZELLA testing.
In preparation for the Fall 2024 LEA Reason for Lack of ELP Testing application (reason why students were not administered the Spring 2024 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.
Student Test Registrations in PearsonAccess Next (PAN)
Students must be registered, assigned the correct tests, and added to test sessions (for online tests) in PearsonAccess Next (PAN) for the Reassessment administration. ADE and Pearson have pre-registered most Arizona EL students; however, additional students must be added to PAN or will need to have their registrations transferred in PAN to their new school. These tasks are completed by the AZELLA DTCs and STCs.
Districts and schools may individually register students using the PAN interface or use the Pearson-provided Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Student Registration File Layout and Template found in PAN in the Support >> Documentation section. Explicit directions for using this template are found in the Spring 2024 Reassessment PAN User's Guide. When using the template, it must be saved and uploaded into PAN as a .csv file.
Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Test Administration
- The AZELLA Kindergarten and Grade 1 Reassessment tests are paper-and-pencil tests. Units 1-4 may be administered 1-on-1, small group, or large group. Unit 5 (the Speaking Test) must be individually administered in a quiet environment using TestNav to play the questions and capture the student responses. Test Administrators must use a testing device for the administration of the Unit 5 (Speaking) test with an external wired microphone to record the student's responses. External speakers may also be needed to ensure that the volume and sound quality is sufficient when playing the questions. The students will NOT be utilizing the electronic testing device. This is strictly for the Test Administrator to use to navigate the test unit and capture the student's responses. The Unit 5 Speaking Test demonstration video must be played for the Kindergarten and Grade 1 students prior to administering the Unit 5 test.
- The AZELLA Grades 2-3 Reassessment test is a hybrid administration. Units 1, 2, 3, and 5 of the test are administered online through the Pearson's TestNav application while Unit 4 of the test is a paper-pencil administration. The Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Grades 2-3 Extended Writing Student Test Books are scorable documents and must be shipped back to Pearson for scoring. There are four separate Student Testing Tickets, one for each of the online test units. A required Speaking Practice Protocol using the Sample Test must be conducted before the administration of Unit 5 (Speaking) takes place. Details on the Speaking Practice Protocol are included in the Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Grades 2-3 Test Administration Directions.
- The AZELLA Grades 4-12 Reassessment tests are administered online through Pearson's TestNav application.
Please refer to the AZELLA Annual and AZELLA Reassessment training courses for additional information about online testing and the TestNav application.
AZELLA Sample Tests
It is strongly recommended that all students who will be administered the Spring Reassessment Test and Test Administrators prepare for the test by practicing with the Sample Tests. AZELLA online Sample Tests are available in TestNav and 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 themselves 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 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 2023 received an initial shipment of Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grades 2-3 Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Test materials during the weeks of January 16 and January 22, 2024. This included district and school test materials, return shipping materials, The Test Coordinator's Manual, and Pre-ID Labels for those Grades K-3 students who were on the EL73 Report as of January 4, 2024.
If the Reassessment paper test 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 2024 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 1, 2024, for testing materials. Return shipping materials (labels, boxes, etc.) will continue to be available to order through PAN until March 15, 2024.
ADE and Pearson will be ordering and shipping all 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 4, 2024, and arrived at districts on January 19, 2024. 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. Instead, the student data grid on the back cover of the student test book must be bubbled in by an adult for Grades K-3 students who are required to be tested and did not receive a Pre-ID Label and for students who Pre-ID Label contains incorrect information and, therefore, cannot be used.
Please refer to the DTC-STC training module and the Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Test Coordinator's Manual for detailed 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 specialist trained in Language Acquisition, 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 Accommodations for Students with Disabilities in the November 2023 AZELLA Accommodations Manual.
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), ASL, and Braille, during the Fall 2023 semester. ADE Assessments has responded to AZELLA DTCs with approved accommodations. If the AZELLA DTC has not received a response to a request, they should ensure that ADE has not asked the district for additional information.
Currently, ADE is only accepting requests for additional accommodations for newly enrolled and transfer students since the deadline to submit requests was December 15, 2023. For additional accommodations requests submitted for newly enrolled and transfer students, ADE will respond to the DTC with an approval and/or a request 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 Student Transferred with an EL Need form must be used throughout the Reassessment test window for all K-12 EL students who transfer during the Spring Reassessment Test window. This form helps the DTC determine if the student needs to be administered an AZELLA Placement Test, or the AZELLA Reassessment Test, or does not need to be tested with either AZELLA test.
Returning Spring Testing Materials to Pearson
The Spring 2024 Reassessment materials must be returned to the Pearson warehouses as Scorable and 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 are included in the Spring 2024 AZELLA Reassessment Test Coordinator's Manual (TCM). Materials must be picked up and shipped out no later than March 22, 2024.
- Districts will be responsible for paying for overnight shipping for AZELLA testing materials that are not shipped out by March 22, 2024.
- Pearson must receive each district's Scorable testing materials no later than March 27, 2024. Student test books received after March 27 will not be scored.
- The UPS tracking numbers can be reported to ADE to ensure that Pearson receives the district's boxes of materials.
