Achievement District Test Coordinator (DTC) emails will be sent regularly through the testing windows. DTCs are responsible for sharing statewide testing information with other staff and district/charter administration, as appropriate. Please be on the lookout for Achievement Assessment communications for all of the Achievement tests.

All Achievement DTC emails from ADE's Assessments team are posted on our website for easy reference at: https://www.azed.gov/assessment/achievement-dtcs, under "DTC Communications - 2023-2024 School Year."

Please remember the following when emailing the ADE Achievement Assessments team inboxes:

For issues that occur while students are testing, please include in the email subject line, "Urgent - Students Testing." 

When contacting Pearson Customer Support for assistance, please retain your ticket number. If you contact ADE's Assessments team for assistance with the same question or issue, please share the Pearson ticket number with us so ADE and Pearson can further assist you.

  

Requests for Special Paper Version (SPV) tests for AASA, AzSCI, and ACT Aspire, including braille, large print, or regular print tests, must be submitted to ADE for review by February 23, 2024 using the secure online form: https://www.azed.gov/assessment/spv2024. A copy of the student's IEP or 504 Plan must be uploaded with the request. 

Requests for additional accommodations for AASA, AzSCI, and ACT Aspire should 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. Requests for additional accommodations should not include Universal Test Administration Conditions or Universal Tools, which are available for all students. Please refer to the Achievement Assessments Accommodations Manual for additional information about Universal Test Administration Conditions and Universal Tools. Please also refer to the ACT Aspire Accessibility Supports Guide for additional information about ACT Aspire accommodations.

Please contact us if a student has an injury or illness after February 23, 2024 that necessitates a paper test or additional accommodation. Specific accommodations will be considered based on a doctor's written recommendation and the appropriateness for statewide testing.

The Personal Needs Profile (PNP) file is available for AASA, AzSCI, and ACT Aspire to allow LEAs to upload to PAN any accessibility tools that must be turned on ahead of time and ready for any students who have these tools as accommodations.

The Work Request process is not utilized for student transfers for the ACT test. For ACT, use the Enroll or Unenroll Students form as mentioned in the "Student Eligibility Reports" section above. A support request will need to be submitted to ACT within PearsonAccess Next. ACT will then check to see if a student has already completed testing before processing the support request.    

ADE's upload of students for AASA will be visible in PearsonAccess Next (PAN) on February 5, 2024. When students are uploaded to PAN for AASA, the test sessions are created automatically, and students are placed into the appropriate sessions for the grade level indicated.

Students in Grades 4-8 will have three test units for ELA: Writing, ELA 1 (Reading), and ELA 2 (Reading); and two test units for Math: Math 1 and Math 2.

In PAN, there will be only two sessions for these students: one for ELA and one for Math. During testing, all ELA test units will be accessed under the one session for ELA (with one testing ticket) and all Math test units under the one session for Math (with one testing ticket).

 

Schools administering ACT Aspire paper-based tests will receive barcode labels for any students that have been uploaded to PearsonAccess Next by February 19, 2024. Barcode labels will be sent in a separate shipment from paper test booklets and answer documents, but both shipments should be received within the same week in March. If barcode labels are not received for any students, the demographic information will need to be bubbled in on the student's answer documents.

Any approved Special Paper Version tests for ACT Aspire must be administered within the shorter paper-based testing window, including for schools that are otherwise administering online tests. Student responses from braille and large print tests must be transferred to a regular answer document for scoring. The deadline for ACT Aspire to receive all paper testing materials for scoring is April 17, 2024.

ADE's upload of students for ACT Aspire has now been completed and is visible in PearsonAccess Next (PAN). Test sessions for ACT Aspire were not automatically created when students were uploaded to PAN. This step will need to be completed by schools/districts. Please see the ACT Aspire Test Coordinator Manual for details.

Students will have a separate testing ticket for each test unit for ACT Aspire.

ACT Aspire is a timed test. The test sections may be administered on the same day, or they may be administered on different days. This flexibility is left up to schools/districts. If administering on the same day, a break may be scheduled between the test sections. In addition, the test sections for ACT Aspire may be administered in any order. The test sections include English, Math, Reading, Science, and Writing. 

  

ACT Aspire electronic score reports and student data files will be available in PearsonAccess Next on May 24, 2024. Paper copies of student score reports will be delivered to districts and charters June 6, 2024.

The ACT Test Coordinator Manual and Test Administration Manuals are published on the ACT-hosted webpage under Step 5: Administration. Hard copies of the manuals will be shipped to districts and charters according to the materials delivery window selected in PearsonAccess Next. These manuals should be used when training staff for ACT test administration.

All Achievement DTCs with students in Grade 11/Cohort 2025 are expected to view the three ACT-hosted webinars, either by attending the live webinars or viewing the recordings. Two webinars were held in the fall, Test Administration #1 and Accommodations, and are now available on demand. The third webinar, Test Administration #2, will be held on February 21, 2024, at 9:00am. Links to all three webinars are available through the ACT Schedule of Events.

ACT accommodations requests must be submitted in ACT's Test Accessibility and Accommodations (TAA) system no later than February 2, 2024. Requests for reconsideration must be submitted by February 16, 2024. Requests for qualified exceptions to the deadline must be submitted by March 22, 2024.

Please contact us at Testing@azed.gov if a student enrolls after the submission deadlines and requires accommodations for ACT. If the student has transferred from another Arizona district or from another state, ADE and ACT can research to determine if accommodations were approved for the student at their previous school.

ACT has scheduled several Office Hours sessions through March 27, 2024 to answer questions about ACT-approved accommodations. Register for upcoming sessions or view previous sessions on demand through ACT's Webcasts page.

All schools administering the online ACT test are strongly encouraged to complete a mock administration to ensure that devices are ready for testing. More information is available on the ACT website under Step 2: Configuration.

Test sessions for ACT were not automatically created when students were uploaded to PearsonAccess Next. This step will need to be completed by schools/districts according to the timeline provided in the ACT Schedule of Events and the resources included on the ACT website under Step 4: Preparation.

Student Authorization Tickets will need to be printed before test day and provided to the Room Supervisor the day of testing. Seal codes are used to begin each ACT test session.

Schools administering ACT paper-based tests will receive barcode labels for any students that have been uploaded to PearsonAccess Next by February 9, 2024. If barcode labels are not received for any students, the demographic information will need to be bubbled in on the student's answer documents.

Depending on the test date selected in PearsonAccess Next, the initial shipment may include only non-secure materials, or it may include all testing materials, both non-secure and secure. If only non-secure materials are delivered in the initial shipment, the secure materials will arrive the week before the start of testing.

ACT is a timed test. Test sections must be administered in the following order: English (1), Math (2), Reading (3), Science (4), and Writing (5).

  

 

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

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 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.

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

NAEP and NCES (National Commission of Education Statistics) has a goal to streamline and save resources by utilizing the devices that the students are already familiar with. Data shows that students do test better on devices which they are familiar with.

After the 2024 NAEP window closes, there are schools that are going to be field testing using school devices to deliver the NAEP assessment (none in Arizona).

ADE does not have definitive dates on moving to a device agnostic NAEP administration. The data from the 2024 administration and the field test utilizing school devices in 2024 will impact future decisions on the feasibility of going to a device agnostic administration.

NAEP will be conducting a Long-Term Trend Assessment for students aged 9, 13, and 17.

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

602-364-1538