Audra Ahumada

What a year this has been! I don't know that any of us could have anticipated the changes and pivoting we would have to do.

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who worked so hard to ensure that our state was able to administer statewide assessments safely. We really appreciate you all sending us your ideas. We shared these in our state and even with national partners and other states!

We are listening! ADE has been working collaboratively with our vendor to publish AZELLA Reassessment results earlier so LEAs can process proficient students in AzEDS. AZELLA results will be available in PAN on July 8, 2021!

ADE received approval from the US Department of Education for our Federal Accountability Waiver, waiving School Improvement Identification and the 95% Participation Rate required for all states. While these requirements are waived for the state for the 2020-2021 school year, the waiver does not waive the requirement to assess students. LEAs should continue to make every effort to assess all students. For more information regarding the Federal Accountability Waiver, please visit the following webpage: USDOE Approved Arizona's Request to Waive Accountability, Identification, and Reporting Requirements.

Please be watching for the End of Test Surveys. These will be sent via email to District Test Coordinators (DTCs) and Test Administrators (TAs). We are looking forward to receiving the results from AzM2 DTCs and TAs and from MSAA TAs. The results from these surveys will add additional context to our state assessment results. Please encourage your TAs for AzM2 and MSAA to complete these surveys.

Additionally, please take a few minutes to complete the 2021 ADE Accommodations Survey and to distribute it to your TAs, both general and special educators, if you have not already done so. This accommodations survey helps inform ADE of current accommodations practices and helps identify additional ways to support the field. It was originally sent to DTCs in March 2021 and will close on June 1, 2021.

The Assessment programs will be very busy this summer with several Test Development Committees. We will have educator and parent/community committees that will give us feedback for future assessment items! Typically, these meetings have been held in-person, but due to the pandemic and the necessity to ensure this work continued, we have been working with our test vendors to hold these virtually.

Finally, we have updated the Assessments Overview document to include tentative test windows for Spring 2022 on Page 2.

An accessible version of this newsletter with images removed can be accessed from The Examiner page of our website: https://www.azed.gov/assessment/examiner/

All districts and charters are asked to submit the 2021-2022 Assessment Test Coordinator and Security Agreement by June 30, 2021. This form requires the names and contact information for each of the Achievement Testing, Alternate Assessment, and AZELLA District Test Coordinators and must be signed by the Superintendent/Charter Representative and each designated District Test Coordinator prior to the start of any 2021-2022 state assessments. This form can be found on the ADE District Test Coordinators website.

In the 2021-2022 school year, we will again be offering a series of webinars covering a variety of hot topics pertaining to our statewide assessments. The schedule, topics, and registration links will be coming this summer. The webinar series will begin in fall 2021.

In Spring 2022, the following Achievement statewide assessments will be administered:

We continue to need groups of educators and community members to review test items for ELA, Math, and Science.

Educators: It you know of any educators who might be interested, please have them join our committee database. The committee application is on our Educators webpage.

Parents/Community Members: If you have friends, neighbors, or relatives who are not working in K-12 schools and may be interested in the Community/Parent group, please have them sign up! The committee application is on our Parents webpage.

The Achievement Section monitors students with special needs so they receive the appropriate accommodations for assessment that they receive in the classroom and that are written in their 504 plan or IEP. While there are some instructional accommodations that are not approved for assessment because they change the construct of the test (Text-to-Speech for Reading and Speech-to-Text for Writing), we do work with districts and charters to provide Special Paper Version tests - Braille, Large Print, and Paper tests - when appropriate. 

Test Coordinator's Manuals and Test Administration Directions are non-secure test materials and can be discarded at your site. Used scratch paper, test tickets, and AzM2 Test Administration Directions for Special Paper Versions are considered secure test materials and must be securely destroyed. It is not necessary to return these materials to MI.

May 14 - Online reports, including student data files, will be available in ORS.

May 27 - Paper copies of the Family Reports will be delivered to districts.

June 8 - Grades 4-8 online reports, including student data files, will be available in ORS.

June 18 - Grade 10 online reports, including student data files, will be available in ORS.

July 23 - Paper copies of the Family Reports will be delivered to districts.

Individual student reports: One copy is distributed to parents/guardians, and the other is placed in the student's secure file, once it is received.

Per §15-741.F, districts may request a district data file. The Spring 2021 district data file will include student and item information and other relevant data points not contained in the standard data file including item type, theta scores by reporting category, scale score by reporting category, and number of items by reporting category. All requests should be submitted to ADE by June 7, 2021 by completing the form: https://www.azed.gov/district-data-file-spring-2021.

This is the last test administration of AzM2. Student Data Files and Score Reports from Spring 2015-2021 must be downloaded locally. We encourage you to download the 2015-2019 results now and then download the Spring 2021 results on or before June 30, 2021. To do this, go to the Test Coordinators page of the AzM2 portal and select "Online Reporting System". Select the Administration year and Export to Inbox.

The last date for AzM2 Corrections is June 30, 2021.

If you have any questions regarding AzM2, please email AzM2@azed.gov.

The AzSCI Field Test window is now closed. All Special Paper Version (SPV) test materials must be returned to Pearson by May 4, 2021. If you have hard copies of Test Coordinator's Manuals or Test Administration Directions, these are non-secure test materials and can be discarded at your site. You do not need to return these manuals to Pearson.

AzSCI was a field test this year so no reports will be available to LEAs or students. The purpose of a field test is to gather data on the items and information about the use of technology rather than to provide district, school, and student data.

If you have any questions regarding AzSCI, please email AzSCI@azed.gov.

Now that ACT and SAT testing have been completed for Spring 2021 Menu of Assessments, we are preparing to enter the reimbursement phase. Participating districts and charters will receive an invoice directly from ACT or College Board (SAT) for students who were administered the assessment this spring. Your district or charter will pay that invoice directly to either ACT or College Board.

As soon as ADE receives the final number of eligible Cohort 2022 students tested by each LEA from ACT and College Board, you will receive a contract from ADE’s Procurement department. Please sign and return this contract as soon as possible once received so that reimbursement to your LEA can be completed without delay. After the contract is signed and returned to ADE, it will be fully executed by ADE, and a requisition will be created for the reimbursement. At that point, your LEA will be required to submit an invoice to Testing@azed.gov, addressed from your district or charter to ADE as our Accounts Payable department is not able to reimburse from the invoice you received from ACT or College Board. A reminder email requesting the invoice from your district or charter to ADE will be sent to you when we reach that point in the process.

Our goal is to reimburse districts/charters for Spring 2021 Menu of Assessments by June 30, 2021, the end of the fiscal year. However, this is dependent upon when ADE receives each required item in the process, including final data from ACT and College Board, the signed contracts from districts/charters, and the invoices from districts/charters. We will be working on our end to complete each district and charter’s reimbursement as quickly as possible.

NOTE: Beginning in the 2021-2022 school year, ACT/ACT Aspire will be our statewide high school assessments, and districts/charters will not need to sign up through Menu of Assessments to administer ACT/ACT Aspire. Districts/charters will need to sign up no later than July 1, 2021 to administer SAT/PSAT in lieu of ACT/ACT Aspire in Spring 2022. More information coming soon!

If you have any questions regarding Menu of Assessments, please email Testing@azed.gov.

When contacting the MSAA Service Center (e-mail or chat) or the ADE Alternate Assessment Unit (e-mail), please provide SSIDs or system IDs only. Do not include any other student information. If you have a situation that requires you to share more information, please call. We ask that you remind your test administrators as well.

Please monitor to ensure that all students have completed testing (ELA, Math, and Science) by May 14, 2021. Any tests with an “in progress” status on May 14 should be submitted by clicking through the rest of the items. Tests for students who were not available for in-person testing will remain “not started”. Do not close these tests. Closed tests are only for students with no observable communication. All tests must display one of the following test statuses: Submitted, Closed, or Not Started. Once the testing window closes, there will be no access to the MSAA system, and there is no final closeout.

Test Administrators are required to complete one EOTS survey. The TA will complete this through the Actions Button for one student; however, the survey allows for opportunities to provide feedback on multiple students through one survey. The MSAA EOTS does not impact the submission of the students’ tests. The information collected from these surveys will provide valuable information for future administrations as well as allow TAs to provide feedback to the state and MSAA. The EOTS must be completed by the end of MSAA Test Window at 5:00 pm MST on May 14, 2021.

Test coordinators are responsible for ensuring that printed test materials have been securely shredded after the close of the testing window. Downloaded test materials (DTAs, printed versions of a student’s test, etc.) must be deleted from the desktop and download folders and the recycle bin must be emptied. See page 30 of the Test Administration Manual (TAM) for guidance. TAMs are not secure test materials and do not have to be shredded. These may be discarded or kept. Do not send any materials to ADE.

Professional development hours certificates were e-mailed to Alternate Assessment Test Coordinators in April. Please distribute the PD certificates to those individuals who completed the MSAA TA and/or TC training modules. There are separate certificates for Test Coordinators and Test Administrators.

You can view your test administrator list in MSAA by clicking the Organizations tab in the top menu bar. From there, click the hyperlink number under the Users column. Your list of test administrators will show either “pending” or “completed” under the Training Status column. You may also download this report using the download button on the top right of the list.

The MSAA reporting portal will be open from August 2 - September 24, 2021. Reports will be available for ELA and Mathematics. Reports are available at the District of Attendance (DOA) so your tuitioned-out and privately placed students will not be included in your reports. Please work with the DOA to get the results.

The MSAA Science was a field test this year so no reports will be available to LEAs. The purpose of a field test is to gather data on the item and information about the use of technology rather than to provide district, school, and student data. More information on field testing was presented in a Friday Focus Webinar last fall.

More information on downloading reports and receiving hard copies of the student reports will be sent to the test coordinator prior to August 2.

Under federal regulation, the state is required to “provide appropriate oversight to each LEA that the State anticipates will assess more than 1.0% of its assessed students...using alternate assessments aligned with alternate academic achievement standards.” An LEA may test students who qualify for alternate assessment, even if that participation means that the LEA will exceed 1%. This is then addressed with the Action Plan that the LEA develops and submits to ADE as part of the monitoring requirement. Since there is one year of missing participation data and one year of irregular participation data, ADE is seeking guidance on how to calculate and monitor participation percentages. We will share more information when it is available. Monitoring activities for the 1% Threshold occurs in the fall.

ADE is partnering with other states in the Collaborative for the Alternate Assessment of English Learner Proficiency (CAAELP). This is an exciting opportunity to develop a high-quality alternate English Learner Proficiency assessment. We invite you to be involved through our CAAELP CoP. Meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday from 2-3 PM and the first Thursday from 7-8 AM (content is the same for these meetings). We are still looking for participants to join our state’s CAAELP Community of Practice. Please let teachers in your district know about this great opportunity! Please contact the Alternate Assessment Unit if you are interested.

The CAAELP Project is recruiting for Assessment activities. Please share this link with your LEA educators: CAAELP Educatory/Consultant Information & Recruitment. For more information about CAAELP, please go to the CAAELP website: https://altelpa.org/.

The MSAA States website is under construction. There are several resources available and we will be rolling out more instructional supports throughout the summer.

If you have any questions regarding Alternate Assessments, please email us at AssessingSWDs@azed.gov.

Every school year, the Arizona Department of Education requires an updated Assessment Test Coordinator and Security Agreement form to be completed with all required signatures and filed for each district and charter. This 2021-2022 document must be submitted to Testing@azed.gov before AZELLA testing can begin.

The 2021-2022 AZELLA Pre-testing Requirements by AZELLA Role document will be available by June 15, 2021 on the AZELLA DTC webpage under AZELLA Training Information.

2 weeks prior to the first day of school – Administration of the AZELLA Placement Test may begin for students provided all the 2021 – 2022 pre-testing requirements have been met by the AZELLA DTC, STCs, and the AZELLA staff. 

AZELLA Placement Test Logic Flowchart for School Year 2021-2022

In addition to new students with responses other than English and American Sign Language (ASL) on their Home Language Survey, the following list of students must be administered a full AZELLA 2021-2022 Placement Test within the first 2 weeks of school 2021–2022:

Below is a list of the first 4 Placement Test cycle administrations: 

Stages I-II will be paper-pencil tests and Stages III-V will be administered online.

October 11 – December 10, 2021: Fall 2021 AZELLA Stand-Alone Field Test (SAFT) administration

All EL students in Grades 1 – 12 will be administered this field test. The Fall 2021 SAFT will be administered concurrently with the Placement Test administration. Grades 1 and 2 will be paper-and-pencil tests; Grades 3 – 4 will be administered in a hybrid modality (online and paper-and-pencil); Grades 5 through 12 will be online tests. Kindergarten students will not be participating in the Fall 2021 SAFT. The AZELLA SAFT will be a shorter test (approximately half) than the Spring Reassessment Test. More details to come!

ADE's Assessment section is accepting original artwork submissions from Arizona's English learners. If selected, the artwork will be used for the revised AZELLA document covers and supporting test materials. Student artwork is being accepted until May 14, 2021. To be eligible for consideration, a signed parental Consent and Release form must accompany any art submission.

Thank you to the schools that are part of the sample for NAEP 2021. The traditional NAEP assessment was postponed and schools that are part of the sample have been participating in the NAEP monthly survey. The survey can be found here: 2021 Monthly School Survey (ed.gov) The survey is being conducted in accordance with the Executive Order on Supporting the Reopening and Continuing Operation of Schools and Early Childhood Education Providers, which mandates that the Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) collect the data necessary to fully understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools, including the status of in-person learning at schools across the country. The school survey dashboard to explore results is here: https://ies.ed.gov/schoolsurvey/. We want to thank Arizona schools that were part of the sample for continuing to make sure that we have reportable data.

Due to the pandemic, NAEP has had to adjust the Master Assessment schedule. The full schedule can be found here: Assessment Schedule (nagb.gov). Arizona will be a participant in the following assessments for the 2021-2022 school year:

Mr. Gary McIlvaine is the Director of NAEP and International Assessments for ADE and is happy to discuss any questions about NAEP, PIRLS, or TIMMS assessments. He can be reached at:

available and will also be posted on our conference webpage.

The Examiner is published electronically every August, November, February, and May for distribution to Test Coordinators in Arizona schools. Test Coordinators are responsible for disseminating information in The Examiner as appropriate.