Student Activities

State Mandated Assessment Tools

  • Northwest Evaluation Assessment (NWEA) & Measures of Academic Progress Assessments (MAP)—for reading, mathematics, (K-8), and science for grades 4-8.  This is a computer adaptive assessment administered three times per year where growth and student progress is monitored.  Instruction in the classroom is driven by student data and is based on providing multiple opportunities for students to learn in different ways.
  • M-STEP (grades 3-8) A summative assessment administered during the last 12 weeks of the school year. The summative assessment will consist of two parts: a computer adaptive test and performance tasks that will be taken on a computer but will not be computer adaptive. The summative assessment will:
    • Accurately describe both student achievement and growth of student learning as part of program evaluation and school, district and state accountability systems;
    • Provide valid, reliable, and fair measures of students’ progress toward, and attainment of the knowledge and skills required to be college- and career-ready; and
    • Capitalize on the strengths of computer adaptive testing—efficient and precise measurement across the full range of achievement and quick turnaround of results.
  • PSAT  – The Preliminary SAT, also known as the PSAT/NMSQT® (National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test), is a practice version of the SAT exam. You can only take the PSAT once per year, and many students take the test in 8th grade in reading and math and again in both 10th and 11th grade.  The PSAT is administered to 8th graders in April.

Formative and Summative Assessments

Formative assessments—assessments for learning—are self-reflective processes between the teachers and students to enhance, refine, recognize and respond to learning in-the-moment. Formative assessments will be used school-wide, on a daily basis, to adapt instructional methods to meet all learners’ needs. Classroom and specials teachers will use methods that provide constant feedback, such as questioning stems, and Blooms’ Taxonomy question starters. Within the realm of questioning, classroom teachers will support strong, standards-based instructional practices with the whole class, peer and “turn-and-talk” discussions.

Summative assessments—assessments of learning—provide information on the product’s efficacy (power) and assesses learning at the end of a unit. Summative assessments will be implemented to students after subject material has been taught and reviewed by classroom teachers. Classroom teachers will assess all students after units of material on a school-wide basis and use additional teacher-generated summative assessments during units at their professional discretion. These assessments will include:

  • Computer-generated
  • Portfolio content
  • Comprehension

All summative assessments will be generated to gain knowledge of students’ mastery of subject material and to diagnose each student’s weaknesses and strengths in the respective content material. On a school-wide basis, this data will be disseminated to plan for instructional strategies to maximize the learning acumen of each student.

Teacher-Generated Assessments
Each classroom and extracurricular teacher will be encouraged and have the autonomy to use formal and informal teacher-generated assessments to measure students’ understanding of subject material. Each respective teacher will then use the data to make improvements to their own instructional practices, tailor instruction to meet individual student needs, and share this data with their grade-level teams at collaborative data meetings. These assessments may include handwritten or typed quizzes, reading reflections, performance rubrics, behavioral rubrics, and peer-assessed group rubrics.

The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, Third Edition is a one-on-one assessment that helps identify your child’s specific reading strengths and appropriate instructional reading level for small- group instruction as determined by the F&P Text Level Gradient™. Learn more about it here.

Performance-Based Assessments
Each classroom and resource teacher will use performance-based assessments as a part of each subject material’s curriculum. For writing, each classroom teacher will evaluate student performance on the unit using an overall rubric that focuses on the specific writing skills taught within a writing unit. Formative assessments will be used throughout the unit to measure student progress within each writing unit. For mathematics instruction, each classroom teacher will use the provided performance-based, summative assessments after each unit is taught. During each mathematics unit, each classroom teacher will use formative and teacher-generated assessments to track student growth throughout the unit and school year. These assessments may include “exit” slips where students solve a mathematical problem and/or explain a concept in their own words immediately after a lesson; which both provide instant feedback on a lesson’s mastery by each individual student.

Special Education Assessments

  • Orton-Gillingham
  • Basic Reading Inventory (BRI-Jerry Johns)
  • Functional Behavior Assessments (FBA)
  • Specialized Assessment Rubrics (Specific to Speech, Occupational, Physical Therapy, and Social-Emotional Interventionists)
  • Quick Phonics Assessment for Early Literacy Assessment
  • Cognitive Intellectual Assessment: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV, Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Ability, Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence
  • Academic Assessment: Kaufman Tests of Educational Achievement – II
  • Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Academic Achievement
  • Test of Written Language –III
  • Brigance Inventory
  • Affective/Emotional/Behavioral Assessment: Achenbach Child Behavior Checklists, Classroom Observations, clinical/educational interview
  • Motor Free Visual Perception Test-Revised (MVPT-R)
  • Sensory Profile-School Edition
  • School Function Assessment
  • Visual-Motor Integration assessment (VMI)
  • Jane Ayres Sensory Observations
  • The Evaluation Tool of Children’s Handwriting (ETCH).