Testing Guidelines for the Elementary Schools

Testing Guidelines for the Elementary Schools

The SLCS Board of Education has given the CITA Department the responsibility of making the final approval decisions for assessments.
District assessments may not be altered or changed without prior written approval of the CITA department.
Assessments may not be removed from the school premises without prior written approval of the CITA department, except for the grading of constructed essay responses. Further exceptions to this may be made, with CITA approval, when SAC members are working on the assessment.
Assessments are to be administered in their entirety by the due date assigned by the district (see Assessment Calendar).
District assessments are secure documents that may not be sent home with students (including homebound students) or provided to non-school personnel.
Whenever possible, teachers should avoid having guest teachers administer district assessments. If having a guest teacher is unavoidable, the classroom teacher should communicate the expectations.
Student teachers may be involved in the giving of assessments, but they may not make personal copies for any reasons. The classroom teacher overseeing the student teacher is responsible for communicating and monitoring the expectations.
It is the teacher’s responsibility to verify that the assessment they are administering is the most current version. Information about the most current version dates can be found on the Intranet (CITA\Assessment\Assessment Version Summary). Version dates appear on the assessment and teachers should verify that the date within the footer of the assessment matches the current version date listed on the Intranet.
Photocopying of the assessment should be done only by the classroom teacher. In extenuating circumstances, exceptions to this may be granted by the building principal.
District assessments should be kept secure at all times. Copies should not be left on a desk while the teacher is out of the classroom or unattended in copy rooms.
Assessment copies must always be hand delivered. At no point should an assessment be left in a teacher mailbox, dropped off on a teacher’s desk or sent through interoffice mail. This includes delivery from CITA, from a principal, or from a fellow teacher.
Assessment copies should be held until the end of the school year in a secure location. Some documents need to be retained for longer time periods for the purpose of articulating about student strengths and areas of concern. Documents being used for articulation purposes will be kept in a secure location until articulation is complete.
All assessment documents that are no longer needed should be shredded.

Ethical practices:

Items from district assessments may not be used in other formats- such as for instruction, in reviews or in classroom assessments.
Questions from the constructed response or essayportions of assessments may not be disclosed to students in advance. A list of topics may be given for review.
For the elementary school SLRA, the curriculum requires pre-teaching of vocabulary. It would be unethical to put a student at a disadvantage by not pre-teaching the required SLRA vocabulary.
Images from textbooks may be used on assessments when copyright laws permit.
District assessment scores are intended to accurately reflect students’ understanding of concepts. It would be unethical for a teacher to knowingly ignore a student’s unintentional bubbling errors on a district assessment. The bubble sheet should be corrected, based on the responses given in the student’s assessment packet, and rerun through Pearson. Teachers should counsel students who regularly make bubbling errors on answer sheets about good test taking strategies.
Unless otherwise specified in an individual student’s IEP, teachers will adhere to the specific assessment memo to determine if an assessment may be administered individually or read aloud to in a cover and reveal format.
Violation of these guidelines isconsidered unethical practice. Disciplinary action may be taken.

Homebound Students:

District assessments are secure documents that may not be sent home with students (including homebound students) or provided to non-school personnel. When possible, homebound students are welcome to come to the school buildings to take the district assessment.

For homebound students unable to come to the building, teachers may use an alternative assessment. If an assessment other than the district assessment is given, these students are not included in district compiled data.

Special Education Students

As permitted by an IEP, accommodations and modifications may be made to assessments and assessment settings.
Questions about appropriate accommodations and modifications will be directed to the student’s caseload worker and/or the building principal.

ESL Students

Students that score at Level 1 (Entering) English Proficiency on the W-APT/ WIDA-ACCESS will not be assessed on written classroom or district assessments. The report card will be marked with accommodations.
Students that score at Level 2 (Beginning) on the W-APT/ WIDA-ACCESS will be assessed on all classroom and district assessments with accommodations and modifications according to the adjustments used in instruction. The report card will be marked with accommodations.
Please follow the ESL Exam suggestions when reporting on Level 1 and Level 2 students:

1)Do not run their bubble sheet through the scanner, just hand score

2)On the classroom Assessment Completion Worksheet that gets returned to CITA, the classroom teacher should write the student’s name and say not included (ELL)

3)Return the student Scan-tron to CITA with the Assessment Completion Worksheet

Absent Students

Absent students should make up the assessment.
If an extended absence is planned in advance (i.e. a family vacation) and the student will be absent for the entire testing period, the building administration will, with teacher input, determine a testing schedule.
In the case of an unplanned extended absence, the building administration will, with teacher input, determine a plan for testing.

Guest Teachers and Student Teachers:

All efforts should be made to avoid giving district assessments on days when guest teachers are present. If this becomes necessary, the classroom teacher must inform the guest teacher that no copies of the assessment are to be made or shared beyond those needed for students that day. No copies of the assessment may leave the classroom.
While in the classroom, guest teachers are responsible for securing the assessment.
In the case of long-term leaves (medical, maternity, paternity, etc.), the guest teacher, for planning purposes, may review the assessment prior to each unit of instruction with the building principal or a grade level colleague designated by the principal. The purpose of these meetings is to guide instruction for the unit of study. The principal and grade level colleague should assist the long-term guest teacher in preparing for the assessment.
Student teachers may be involved in the giving of assessments, but they may not make personal copies for any reasons. This includes describing or photocopying any portion of the assessment for sharing in university coursework or course discussions. The classroom teacher overseeing the student teacher is responsible for communicating and monitoring these expectations.

Administration of the Assessment:

In the case of combination classes or grade level subject rotations, an effort will be made for students to test with their subject area teacher. Exceptions may be granted by the building principal.
It is the role and responsibility of the classroom teacher to act as a proctor during district assessments. This requires that teachers actively monitor their students for inappropriate behavior (i.e. watch students and walk around the classroom frequently). When reading to a student or small group of students as necessitated by IEPs, teachers remain responsible for monitoring all students in the classroom.
All classrooms where an assessment is being given must have teacher supervision at all times.
Individual copies of the assessment should be provided to each student and the student must record his or her name at the top of the assessment or on the cover page.
Any scrap paper used by students must be turned in along with the assessment.
An effort will be made to keep students in the classroom during the assessment administration period.
Bubble sheets must be stored in the correct folder of the labeled bins in the specified building location.
Student assessmentsmust be stored in a secure location until the end of the school year and then shredded.

Student and Parent Review of the Assessments:

When teachers distribute scoredassessments and review the results of the assessments with their classes, teachers must make sure that students return all copies of the assessment and do not record information before leaving the room. This debriefing will take place during the period of time specified on the assessment calendar. In the case of Social Studies and Science, debriefing must occur within two weeks of the assessment.
Parents or guardians may view their student’s performance on the assessment under teacher or office supervision at the school building. Parents or guardians may not record any information and must return all copies of the assessment before leaving the meeting.
After bubble sheets are returned to CITA, it is still possible that a copy of the students’ bubble sheet can be made available for review with parents or students. In these cases, teachers and administrators should contact CITA to request a copy of the bubble sheet. However, this copy must remain with the teacher or administrator and be shredded after the meeting.
Teachers may provide parents with a list of general topics for further study with their child (i.e. dividing fractions) but not specific problems or questions (including portions of problems or questions) or copies of their student’s work.

It is important that all staff helps to protect the validity, reliability, and confidentiality of our district assessments.

All infractions of these expectations should be reported immediately to your principal.

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in disciplinary action.

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