Schedules of important tasks for each of the Achievement Assessments are now available. A link to each is included below and can also be accessed from the Achievement District Test Coordinators webpage. 

In Spring 2025, all of the Achievement Assessments will utilize the PearsonAccess Next (PAN) and TestNav platforms. PAN is Pearson's test management system, while TestNav is the online test delivery platform where students will take the online tests. 

There are three separate PAN sites, with three separate logins, depending on the grade level of students in your district or charter.

Please share the technical requirements links below with your district or charter's technology team, as well as the information on TestNav App Updates. Check this webpage to confirm if the TestNav application needs to be re-downloaded on your devices for this school year.

TestNav apps are released annually in June. After the updated version is released, the app automatically updates the next time it is launched on Android, Chrome, and iOS operating systems and on Windows if downloaded from the Windows store. If the app was downloaded directly from download.testnav.com, you must manually re-download and install the updated TestNav app from download.testnav.com for Windows devices.

The Sample Tests, TestNav Tutorial, and a new Student Readiness Tool for AASA and AzSCI are located at https://home.testnav.com/. Select "Arizona", then click on "Mic Check and Sample Tests." Login information is not needed to access these tools.

Please have students practice with the Sample Tests, TestNav Tutorial, and Student Readiness Tool so they can become familiar with the test features, tools, and different types of questions on the tests. For AASA, Sample Tests are available for each grade level for ELA Writing, ELA Reading, and Math. Sample Tests are also available for the Grade 3 ELA Oral Reading Fluency test unit. AzSCI Sample Tests are available for Grades 5, 8, and 11. Sample Test Scoring Guides are available for each Sample Test on the Educator Resources webpage.

High school students in Grade 9 / Cohort 2028 can practice with ACT Aspire Exemplars, which can also be accessed from the https://home.testnav.com/ website by selecting the ACT Aspire logo, and students in Grade 11 / Cohort 2026 can access the ACT Practice Tests by selecting the ACT logo.

Training modules will be available in the Arizona Learning Management System (AzLMS) on November 18, 2024. Achievement District Test Coordinators (DTCs) will receive a notification when the modules are available. DTCs who had an AzLMS account last school year and are in the same district or charter this school year, or who have a current AzLMS account for AZELLA, will continue to use the same account. New DTCs will automatically be enrolled in AzLMS and will receive a welcome email with instructions on completing the account registration process.

Details of who should complete each specific training module can be found in the Achievement Assessments Training Requirements document. Achievement DTCs are required to complete all applicable training modules within the AzLMS. Testing staff are encouraged to complete their applicable training modules within the AzLMS; however, DTCs may instead provide a group training, if preferred. Achievement DTCs are responsible for tracking staff completion of trainings whether staff complete trainings within AzLMS or through a group training. All testing staff must be trained prior to administering any tests.

Pearson and ADE's Achievement Assessments Team have scheduled two AzLMS Office Hours sessions to answer questions and assist DTCs with troubleshooting any AzLMS account issues.

The Achievement Assessments team will offer optional Office Hours sessions this Winter/Spring! Each session will be held on Wednesdays from 1:00-2:00pm. Registration is now available in the ADE Professional Learning & Development (APLD) system using the registration links below. A Teams meeting invitation will be sent to all registered attendees prior to each Office Hours session.

The Achievement Assessments Accommodations Manual has been updated and posted on the Assessments Accessibility webpage. Please remind 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 and tools by using the Sample Tests.

Arizona offers three test 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 tests for AASA, AzSCI, and ACT Aspire must be submitted to ADE for review and approval by February 21, 2025, using this secure online form: Spring 2025 Achievement Special Paper Version Request Form. Additional information is available in the Special Paper Version Request Process Quick Guide.

Requests for additional accommodations must be submitted to ADE for review and approval by February 21, 2025, using this secure online form: Spring 2025 Achievement Additional Accommodations Request Form. Additional information is available in the Additional Accommodations Request Process Quick Guide.

Use the Additional Accommodations Request Form for the following accommodations:

Do not submit requests for 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. Refer to the 2024-2025 Detailed Testing Calendar for estimated times for each test unit.

All Grade 3 students will participate in an ELA Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) test unit, administered online in TestNav in small groups of no more than six students testing at one time. Beginning with the Spring 2025 AASA test administration, the Grade 3 ELA ORF test unit will be an operational test unit and will be included in each Grade 3 student's ELA score and in the Move on When Reading (MOWR) indicator. (Exception: Students taking either the American Sign Language test form or the Braille test form will not take the ORF test unit.)

For the Spring 2025 AASA test administration, the Grade 3 ELA test window has been updated to align with the Writing test window in computer-based testing schools.

The following Grade 3 Oral Reading Fluency resources are published on the AASA webpage:

PearsonAccess Next (PAN), https://az.pearsonaccessnext.com/, will open for Spring 2025 AASA test administration tasks on December 18, 2024. On that date, Achievement DTCs will receive access and can begin the tasks of verifying their contact and shipping information and adding other users in the district or charter to PAN. If any changes are needed to the contact information and shipping address, please send an email to AASA@azed.gov no later than February 21, 2025 to ensure that AASA materials are shipped and delivered appropriately. 

For Spring 2025 AASA, Achievement DTCs will enter participation counts in PearsonAccess Next (PAN) and select the preferred materials due-in-district window for the delivery of test materials. The participation counts entered in PAN for grades 3-8 during the January 6-17, 2025, window will determine the number of Test Coordinator's Manuals and Test Administration Directions shipped for both computer-based 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 DTCs will need to select the preferred window for their district or charter in PAN during the window January 6-17, 2025. Any districts or charters that do not make a selection in PAN during this window will be defaulted to delivery window 1. 

ADE will upload students to PearsonAccess Next (PAN) for AASA testing. The last day to revise student enrollments in AzEDS prior to ADE's upload of students is January 22, 2025. ADE will extract student information from AzEDS and upload the data to PAN. This upload will be visible in PAN on February 3, 2025. Any AASA-eligible students who enroll after January 22nd, or who are missed in ADE's upload, will need to be added to PAN by the district or school.

The tentative test window for the Summer 2025 AASA Grade 3 ELA-Reading administration is June 9 - July 18, 2025. The summer test window is an additional reading demonstration tool available for Grade 3 students who fail to meet the Spring 2025 Move on When Reading (MOWR) indicator and who do not qualify for one of the MOWR good cause exemptions related to students with IEPs, a diagnosis of dyslexia, or being an English learner. Additional information will be communicated with District Test Coordinators in the coming months.

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

PearsonAccess Next (PAN), https://az.pearsonaccessnext.com/, will open for Spring 2025 AzSCI test administration tasks on January 29, 2025. On that date, Achievement DTCs will receive access and can begin the tasks of verifying their contact and shipping information 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.

ADE will upload students to PAN for AzSCI testing. The last day to revise student enrollments in AzEDS prior to ADE's upload of students is February 11, 2025. ADE will extract student information from AzEDS and upload the data to PAN. The upload will be visible in PAN on February 17, 2025. Any AzSCI-eligible students who enroll after February 11th, or who are missed in ADE's upload, will need to be added to PAN by the district or school.

While ACT Aspire has been discontinued at a national level, Arizona will continue to administer the ACT Aspire Early High School assessments to students in the 9th grade cohort for the life of our contract. In Spring 2025, ACT Aspire will be administered to students in Cohort 2028.

ACT Aspire resources can be accessed from the new Pearson-hosted support website: https://az-support.mypearsonsupport.com/aspire/. Updated resources, including the Test Coordinator's Manual, Room Supervisor Manual-Online, Room Supervisor Manual-Paper, and Accessibility Supports Guide will be published on this support site as soon as possible.

PearsonAccess Next (PAN), https://aspire.pearsonaccessnext.com/, will open for Spring 2025 ACT Aspire test administration tasks on January 13, 2025. On that date, Achievement DTCs will receive access and can begin the tasks of verifying their contact and shipping information and adding other users in the district or charter to PAN.

ADE will upload students for ACT Aspire testing. The last day to revise student enrollments in AzEDS prior to ADE's upload of students is January 21, 2025. ADE will extract student information from AzEDS and upload the data to PAN. The upload will be visible in PAN on January 28, 2025. Any Cohort 2028 students who enroll after January 21st, or who are missed in ADE's upload, will need to be added to PAN by the district or school.

Pearson has scheduled two ACT Aspire Chat with an Expert sessions to answer test coordinator questions related to ACT Aspire. Please save the following dates if you would like to attend one or both sessions. Login information will be provided soon in an upcoming DTC email.

ACT recently announced enhancements to the ACT assessment, which will go into effect for the Spring 2026 statewide test administration. There are no changes to the Spring 2025 ACT state test. Updates will be shared on the impacts to the Spring 2026 administration when they are available. 

Districts and charters with Grade 11 / Cohort 2026 students may utilize both published Arizona ACT test windows in order to assess all Cohort 2026 students. Schools are encouraged to administer ACT during the first test window and may also use the second test window, as needed, to complete any makeup testing.

There is only one standard paper test date in each testing window. Schools administering ACT on paper may also use the online test days 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 open for Spring 2025 test administration tasks on November 4, 2024. On that date, Achievement District Test Coordinators with Grade 11 / Cohort 2026 students will receive access and can begin completing tasks in PAN.

The following tasks must be completed November 4 - December 6, 2024:

More information about completing these tasks 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 on October 4, 2024. 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 4, 2024, 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. 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 6, 2024, 9:00am MST (Register Here)

Accommodations - November 13, 2024, 9:00am MST (Register Here)

Test Administration #2 - November 19, 2024, 9:00am MST (Register Here)

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 2025. The initial deadline for submitting ACT accommodations and support requests is February 7, 2025. 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 February 7, 2025, deadline to submit ACT accommodations requests. If you have not yet obtained the signed parent consent form prior to the February 7 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 7 for initial requests. If you have questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us at Testing@azed.gov. 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 sessions beginning November 12, 2024. 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 21, 2025. ADE's upload of students will be visible in PAN no later than January 27, 2025. Any Cohort 2026 students who enroll after January 21st, or who are missed in ADE's upload, will need to be added to PAN by the district or school.

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 on how your technical infrastructure and testing devices will interact with the testing software during a live administration. This task can be completed beginning December 2, 2024, and should be completed no later than February 19, 2025, 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 2026 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 than 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 or district ACT test date for accountability purposes, rather than Arizona's statewide assessment date, 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 21, 2025. Requests must be submitted by the school or district 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 Aspire or ACT, please contact us at Testing@azed.gov.

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

Nov. 8: Placement Cycle 6 closes (reports out on 12/02/2024)

Nov. 12: AZELLAology

Nov. 25 - Dec. 6: REQUIRED TASKS FOR ALL AZELLA DTCs - Reassessment shipping address verifications (K-12) and completion of the Grades K-3 Spring 2025 Reassessment Participation Counts in PAN

Dec. 3: AZELLAology

Dec. 13: Additional Accommodations requests for the Spring 2025 Reassessment are due

Dec. 13: Placement Cycle 7 closes (report out on 01/03/2025)

Jan. 2: Download your EL73 Reports and confirm newly enrolled students have their school enrollment showing on the STUD10 Report

Jan. 6: REQUIRED TASK FOR ALL AZELLA DTCs - Spring Reassessment training opens in the AzLMS

Jan. 14: AZELLAology

Jan. 14 - 20: Spring Reassessment paper test materials arrive at districts and charters

Jan. 17: Placement Cycle 8 closes (reports out on 02/06/2025)

Jan. 17: Earliest date that AZELLA DTCs' PAN accounts can be enabled for the Spring 2025 Reassessment

Jan. 27: Spring 2025 Reassessment Test window opens - Test Early, Don't Wait!

New for the Spring 2025 training modules is the Fundamentals course. This course is required to be completed by all AZELLA DTCs, STCs, and Test Administrators. ADE's Assessments listened to your feedback and have removed slides from the grade-level modules that were repetitive and created the Fundamentals course. In doing so, the grade-level modules are shorter in length. 

During the Spring 2025 AZELLA Reassessment test window, selected schools will also be administering a complete Spring 2025 AZELLA test to pre-selected native English-speaking students. 

ADE will determine which districts and schools will participate in the Native Speaker Field Test and notify them that they have native English-speaking students who will participate in the NSFT. The administration of the NSFT is not optional. 

Selected native-speaker students will be pre-registered in PAN in a separate test administration called Spring 2025 Native Speaker. DTCs will not need to register any of these students. The NSFT Grades K-3 paper test materials will be automatically shipped to participating districts. 

ADE and Pearson will notify participating districts in early December. No additional training will be required for participating districts other than an informational webinar that ADE and Pearson will be conducting in early January for the AZELLA DTCs of selected districts. ADE will provide more information to participating districts as the test window approaches. 

For districts who complete their K-3 Participation Counts in December, Pearson will ship the same quantity plus a 5% district overage of the paper test materials to the shipping address on file for the Spring Reassessment Test administration. These materials are scheduled to arrive at the shipping address that is in PAN between January 14-20. An employee of the district or charter who has signed the AZELLA Test Security Agreement must be available to sign receipt of the shipments. The paper test materials and the Pre-ID Labels will be shipped separately and will arrive during the same week. DTCs will have an opportunity to order additional materials after the materials received have been inventoried. If the Reassessment materials have NOT been delivered by Monday, January 20, DTCs should contact ADE via email at AZELLA@azed.gov. LEAs must wait until January 20 before contacting ADE. 

Districts and charters must KEEP the boxes in which the testing materials arrive because the same boxes need to be used to return the materials at the end of the test window. 

All students with an EL need and a current AZELLA record are required to participate in the Spring Reassessment Test. This includes students enrolled in EL services (SEI, Bilingual waiver, 50-50 Dual Language Instruction, and Parent Withdrawn) as well as those who have not been enrolled in any EL services for the school year. These students appear on the EL73 - EL Student Need Report as EL Groups 1, 2, and 4. It is imperative that the EL73 Report is downloaded and reviewed frequently before and throughout the Reassessment Test window.

All students, regardless of disability, who have a Home Language Survey that includes a language other than English and/or ASL require an English Language Proficiency (ELP) test. There are no provisions, in either state or federal law, which would allow the exemption of ELP testing for students who are enrolled in the Special Education program and require an ELP test.

The AZELLA DTC must contact the AZELLA Team at ADE about any student who requires an accommodated version of the Spring AZELLA Reassessment 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 the AZELLA Additional Accommodations Request Form 2024-2025.

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. The deadline to submit AZELLA Additional Accommodations requests will be December 13, 2024. The only exception to this is transfer students.

Accommodated Forms for Grades KG-12

Alt ELPA students who are eligible for Alternate Assessments qualify for the Alt ELPA and do not need the Additional Accommodations Request form submitted. For Alt ELPA students, AZELLA DTCs are only required to ensure that the Alt ELPA students are tested during the Spring 2025 Reassessment test window.

The AZELLA DTC must ensure that school enrollments and EL program services have been synchronized from the School Information System (SIS) to AzEDS by January 2, 2025, and correct any Placement Test records that are in the AZELLA Corrections application by January 2. This data needs to be complete because ADE will be extracting all Kindergarten through Grade 12 EL student data on January 3 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 3 and January 17, 2025, as a reminder to print the EL73 - EL Student Need 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 3 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 student's paper test books must be completed by the DTC and STCs prior to the students testing. 

When emailing AZELLA@azed.gov, please:

The Arizona Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition Services (OELAS) is excited to share updates regarding the 2024 conference!

Throughout the conference experience, our goal is to build the knowledge, capacity, and confidence of educators and leaders of English learners (ELs) as we teach and support our ELs.

December 10-12, 2024

Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel and Spa

9495 W. Entertainment Blvd.

Glendale, AZ 85305

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

Directive 15 is a U.S. Office of Management and Budget policy that provides standard classifications for record keeping, collection, and presentation of data and race and ethnicity in federal program administrative and reporting and statistical activities. Tracking race and ethnicity is a federal requirement. New guidance for Directive 15 was announced with timelines for implementation in June of 2024.

MENA is the acronym for the newest race and ethnicity category that will be tracked. MENA stands for Middle Eastern North African. This was determined after reviewing over 20,000 public comments and 100 listening sessions on how to best collect race and ethnicity in the United States.

Changing the categories for race and ethnicity will have impacts on trend lines and the data. In addition, it still needs to be determined how best to collect race and ethnicity data moving forward given the new guidance. NAEP and the U.S. Department of Education, along with all the statistical reporting agencies, are working to determine the best practices to collect data.

Dr. Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), recently announced how NAEP will utilize our upcoming field test to determine the best methods of data collection moving forward in our field test. NAEP and NCES are also interested in measuring the effect size and impact to trend lines in an unbiased manner. NAEP is looking to gain insight into other aspects of the data collection around race and ethnicity.

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

602-364-1583