September 24, 2018
Greetings Montclair Public Schools’ Parents/Guardians and Staff,
The Montclair Public Schools Summary of State and District Testing for 2018-2019 provides a high-level overview of standardized assessments and other assessments given to students in our district. As determined by the New Jersey State Department of Education (NJDOE), the attached document outlines assessments used for state graduation. To ensure our parents/guardians and staff have current information relative to NJDOE’s graduation assessment requirements for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) please see the State High School Graduation Assessment Requirements.
NJDOE released a tentative plan to revisit the state graduation assessment requirements; however, the plan has not been finalized and approved. For this reason, we, the Montclair Public Schools administration, elected to decline the optional Fall 2018 re-test session for students who need PARCC Algebra or PARCC ELA 10 to graduate in May 2020 or beyond. If the NJDOE does not change the current graduation requirements during the 2018-2019 school year, we will offer an optional test administration in the summer of 2019 to ensure our Montclair scholars are eligible to meet the current NJDOE high school graduation requirements.
As it stands now, students who do not test will be characterized as students who “refuse to test.” The “refuse to test” language is intentional to denote PARCC is currently a high school graduation requirement for students graduating in the Class of 2020 and beyond. To that end, NJDOE uses unambiguous language. Should the NJDOE State Board of Education elect to adopt the Commissioner’s graduation requirement proposal that restores optional, non-PARCC assessments as graduation requirements, the Montclair Public Schools administration will inform stakeholders immediately. Also, parents/guardians are encouraged to keep abreast of any changes to the NJDOE graduation requirements by reviewing updates available on the State Department of Education website.
Other tests detailed in the attachment are listed below:
- New Jersey Student Learning Assessment – Science (NJSLA-S) – Grade 5, 8 & 11 state science assessment,
- ACCESS for English Language Learners (ELL) – an assessment for K-12 students who have English as a secondary language,
- Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM) for ELA and Math – an alternate assessment for students with significant intellectual disabilities in ELA and Math,
- Renaissance Learning (RL) – a teacher tool to gather data to personalize instruction (grades 1 -8),
- District Algebra Accelerated Placement Test – an assessment for students in grades 5 and 6,
- Developmental Reading Assessment, 2nd edition (DRA-2) – K-5 district reading assessment
- The Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT) – an assessment given to all 10th and 11thgrade students,
- Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT – an optional college placement test for seniors,American College Test (ACT) – an optional college placement test for seniors,
- Accuplacer – an optional college placement test for seniors,
- Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery assessment (ASVAB) – an optional assessment for seniors, and
- Avant Standards-based Measurement of Proficiency (STAMP) – World Languages assessment.
Assessment administration dates vary by school and parents/guardians will be notified once scheduled. Please contact your child’s principal should you have any questions or concerns about your child’s performance on district and/or state assessments.
Sincerely,
Dr. Kendra V. Johnson
Superintendent