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Testing Time

Based on feedback from educators, parents, and students, as well as on other changes to the Texas Assessment Program, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) is implementing a maximum allowable testing time of seven hours for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®) and Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) assessments. Students are expected to complete each STAAR and TELPAS assessment in about three hours; students who are still testing after four hours should be consolidated into a general testing area to continue testing. Students must complete the assessment within the same school day, and no test session may exceed seven hours. Exceptions exist for eligible students who have an approved Extra Day designated support. In addition, as with the administration of STAAR, the TELPAS listening and speaking assessment should be administered on a different day than the TELPAS reading and writing assessment to reduce student fatigue and allow students sufficient time and opportunity to do their best work.

Holy Days and Religious Observance

House Bill (HB) 1883, 88th Texas Legislature, Regular Session, 2023, added Section 39.0238 to the Texas Education Code (TEC), allowing local education agencies (LEAs) to consider the dates of religious holy days or periods of observance likely to be observed by students in the LEA when establishing the LEA’s school calendar and the days on which students will be administered state assessments. Religious holy days and periods of observance are defined as days observed by a religion whose places of worship would be exempt from property taxation under Texas Tax Code Section 11.20. The law requires LEAs to provide an alternate test date within the testing window to administer an assessment to a student who is absent from school to observe a holy day or period of observance on the day a STAAR or STAAR Alternate 2 assessment is administered. When providing the required make-up testing day, LEAs must maintain the security of the assessment to ensure that the assessment content remains valid throughout the testing window.

Reporting

To assist educators in understanding the various reporting events and the types of reports produced for the Texas Assessment Program, a new Reporting section has been added to these Coordinator Resources. The Reporting section includes information on accessing assessment results in the Centralized Reporting System (CRS) and the Family Portal and interpreting assessment reports. In addition, TEA has made the following changes to the assessment reports provided for the Texas Assessment Program based on input from educators:

  • Printed copies of student report cards and confidential student labels will be shipped to districts after final results are available. Only electronic copies will be available with preliminary results.

  • District personnel must opt in to receive printed copies of student report cards and confidential student labels.

  • Districts will receive district and campus summary reports with both preliminary and final results. Roster reports will be provided with final results.

  • Item analysis reports will no longer be provided. Districts can access item analysis reports in CRS.

Test Information Distribution Engine

Based on input from educators, the Test Information Distribution Engine (TIDE) has been updated to include several enhancements. Refer to the TIDE Enhancements for the 2023–2024 School Year training module in the Learning Management System (LMS) for more information. The following changes have been made to TIDE:

  • The View Student History feature allows district coordinators, district testing assistants, and campus testing coordinators to view what updates were made to a student’s demographic or registration information in TIDE and when the updates were made during the current school year. Users will also be able to view assigned rosters and eligible assessments using this feature.

  • Students who have the STAAR 3–8 Above Grade field marked in TIDE will be removed from their grade-level assessment in the corresponding content area. These students will see only the above grade-level assessment in the Test Delivery System (TDS).

  • The secure inbox has been renamed as the Secure File Center. The Secure File Center serves as a password-protected repository listing files containing data that have been exported from TIDE and other Cambium Assessment, Inc. (CAI) systems. After search results are exported to the Secure File Center, TIDE sends an email notification that the export task is completed and the file is available in the Secure File Center for download.

  • The Add Student page in TIDE has the following new fields:

    • EOC—Previously Passed: This field indicates whether a student has previously passed a specific STAAR end-of-course (EOC) assessment. This field will be updated by CAI after December, spring, and June results are released.

    • Proctored Administration: This field is used to indicate which students require an individual or small group signed administration, ensuring that all students within a group see the same set of items.

    • STAAR Paper Test Format: This field has two new options that allow district testing personnel to order and receive both braille and embedded support materials during the initial order window.

    • Spell Check: This accommodation was previously called Spelling Assistance.

Test Delivery System

The following updates have been made to TDS:

  • Students will see an “Are you still there?” pop-up window after five minutes of inactivity and will be logged out of an assessment after 20 minutes.

  • Students are now able to modify font colors and background colors while testing. Using this option is no longer limited to the Test Settings screen.

  • Students who have an accommodation for text-to-speech (TTS) will now see a Read Aloud button on the directions screens in TDS.

  • Students who have an accommodation for speech-to-text (STT) can now use STT in the Notepad and Sticky Notes tools.

Coordinator Resources Updates

In addition to the new Reporting section, these Coordinator Resources include a new section on Other Testing Scenarios that includes information on out-of-school (OOS) and out‑of‑district (OOD) administrations, student mobility, and assessments in alternative education settings.

Several sections of these Coordinator Resources now also include a district coordinator checklist and a campus coordinator checklist. Testing coordinators can use these to ensure that they have completed all their tasks for Registration, Training Activities, Online Administrations, Paper Administrations, Holistic Administrations, Completing Administrations, and Other Testing Scenarios.

Paper by Request

HB 1225, 88th Texas Legislature, Regular Session, 2023, added Section 39.02342 to the TEC, allowing an LEA to provide a paper administration of a STAAR assessment to any student whose parent, guardian, or teacher in the applicable subject area requests a paper version.

The number of students who are provided a paper by request administration of STAAR may not exceed three percent of the number of eligible students enrolled in the district who are administered each assessment. It is important to note that the number of students who receive a paper by request administration is separate and distinct from the students who are eligible for a special paper administration of STAAR. LEAs will continue the same process as last year for any student who is eligible for a special paper administration of STAAR because the student needs a testing accommodation that is not possible to provide in an online setting. These students are not counted in the maximum three percent of students who are administered a paper by request administration of STAAR. Refer to the Paper by Request Administration page for more information.

Word Prediction (Co:Writer) Embedded Accommodation

For students who have a word prediction accommodation for STAAR, TDS now has a Word Prediction (Co:Writer) feature embedded.

Participation Requirements

As a result of the U.S. Department of Education’s denial of Texas’s waiver request for the statewide limitation on the number of students who are assessed with STAAR Alternate 2, TEA has updated the STAAR Alternate 2 participation requirements for the 2023–2024 school year.

The admission, review, and dismissal (ARD) committee must review and determine student participation in STAAR or STAAR Alternate 2 for each school year. If the ARD committee has already reviewed and determined student participation for the 2023–2024 school year based on the previous participation requirements, district personnel must review all eligible students to determine if any STAAR Alternate 2 participation decisions need to be reevaluated based on the updated participation requirements. For those students whose participation needs to be reevaluated based on the updated requirements, assessment participation determinations may be made through an ARD amendment (in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 34, §300.324(a)(i)) or a full ARD committee meeting. For any future assessment participation decisions, the ARD committee should use the updated STAAR Alternate 2 participation requirements.

Blank Graphic Organizer

Eligible students may now use a blank piece of paper as a graphic organizer for the TELPAS listening and speaking assessment and the TELPAS reading and writing assessment. Refer to the Supplemental Aids policy document.

Participation Requirements

The TELPAS Alternate participation requirements have been updated to align with the updates to the STAAR Alternate 2 participation requirements.

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