State Assessment

Accommodation Plan Requirements 

Accommodations and/or supplemental materials and devices must be consistent with those used routinely in classroom instruction and assessments throughout the school year. However, not all instructional accommodations are appropriate for a standardized assessment as they may change the construct that is tested and invalidate the results. Any accommodation, supplemental materials, and devices used for instruction and assessment must be documented in the Student Accommodation Plan. Changing accommodations in the ILAP immediately before testing may not reflect accommodations that are familiar to the student and may not be in the best interest of the student.


Note: ML Program Specialists are responsible for assigning ML test accommodations (see MLs' ILAP) but are not responsible for administering all ML test accommodations for every grade level, school-wide, and state assessments. MLPSs are accountable for administering WIDA screeners and ACCESS for ELLs' assessments.

Beginning in the spring of 2018, the one-year 'exemption' from state testing, specifically South Carolina College-and Career-Ready Assessments (SC READY) ELA, for MLs in their first year in the United States is no longer in place. As a result, all MLs are expected to complete state testing as their non-ML peers do. However, reference the Accountability Manual for specific information regarding MLs and achievement and growth accountability calculations and guidelines. 

Universal design (UD) principles address policies and practices intended to improve access to learning and assessments for all students. UD principles are essential to developing and reviewing instructional and assessment content because some ways of presenting content make it difficult for some students to show what they know. When educators employ UD techniques, they can better understand what students know and can do. UD techniques should be applied consistently in instruction and assessments. In contrast to retrofitting, these techniques are integrated into teaching and assessment from the start. Educators should consider the following principles of UD: 

• inclusion of diverse student populations, 

• precisely defined instructional and assessment constructs, 

• maximally accessible, non-biased content, 

• compatibility with accommodations, 

• simple, clear, and intuitive instructions and procedures, 

• maximum readability and comprehensibility, and 

• maximum legibility. 

Universally designed instructional and assessment content may reduce the need for accommodations and alternate assessments. Nevertheless, UD cannot eliminate the need for accommodations or alternate assessments. UD can provide educators with more valid inferences about the achievement levels of all students. The UD of assessments does not simply mean that instruction and assessments are carried out in a computer-based environment. With greater implementation of technological solutions, thinking about accommodations and UD may change. Traditionally, educators have thought of UD as coming first and accommodations being applied during instruction and assessment. With current technology, educational stakeholders can build some accommodations into instructional and content for evaluation design and redefine some accommodations as universal supports to empower greater numbers of students with optimal accessibility options. View the South Carolina Accessibility Support Document January 2019 for additional information. 

Allowable accommodations for MLs on state assessments should be regularly used in the classroom. Always refer to the SCDE Information for All Assessment Programs webpage and state assessment TAMs for allowable accommodations on each state assessment. 

Students in grade 3 may not have an oral administration of any portion of the ELA assessment. Students in grades 4-8 may have oral administration during Session 1 of the ELA assessment if documented on their ILAP or IEP. 

These accommodations are included in the SC READY and SCPASS Spring 2022—Online and Paper Test Administration Manual. Appendix C Testing Students with Documented Disabilities outlines all available accommodations for students with a documented disability and Appendix D Administration to Multilingual Learners (MLs) outlines all available accommodations for students who are multilingual learners. The 2023 TAM is not available yet but there will not be any changes to the oral administration of ELA Session 1. District Test Coordinators, School Test Coordinators, and Test Administrators are required to read all parts of the TAM according to the test security agreement.  

Alt-V Scoring of CogAT for MLs


Alt-V Scoring of CogAT for ML Students Alt-V scoring involves the elimination of the Sentence Completion subtest from the Verbal battery. Teachers will administer only the Picture Analogies and Picture Classification subtests. The Sentence Completion subtest will be skipped. Students will complete the full Quantitative and Nonverbal batteries. 

Students will receive a composite score and an ability profile that can be used for instructional grouping. The use of Alt-V scoring should be determined for each individual ML student.  

ML students who receive an ACCESS for ELL’s composite score between 1.0 and 4.9 may be considered for Alt-V scoring. ML students without an ACCESS score may have their screener score used; 1.0–4.5 may be considered.

Alt-V Scoring of CogAT for MLs is not a different CogAT assessment. They will be exempted from a subtest - Sentence Completion. A separate setting or small group will only be required for MLs who have a separate setting or small group as a test accommodation listed on their ILAP.

LCSD will assign Alt-V Scoring of CogAT for MLs for all MLs with an ACCESS for ELL's or WIDA Screener composite score between 1.0 and 3.0. CogAT recommends that this assessment be administered in a separate setting because this group of students will finish 10-15 minutes before the other group, which may impact classroom management.  - For schools with MLs assigned to Alt-V Scoring of CogAT, please place MLs assigned to Alt-V Scoring of CogAT in a group with a 2nd-grade classroom teacher/proctor instead of assigning the administration of this ML test accommodation to an ML Program Specialist at your building. ML Program Specialists' service schedules should not be disrupted to administer this assessment accommodation since they have to continue to provide ML services for multiple grade levels in the building during the CogAT testing window.

NOTE: The MLPS assigned to each school will provide the school test coordinator with a list of 2nd-grade MLs who meet this requirement.


In DataManager, the directions and item prompts may be administered in the student’s native language using audio proctoring. Seven additional languages are available, including Spanish, Arabic, Chinese-Mandarin, Chinese-Cantonese, Russian, Somali, and Vietnamese. If your student’s native language is not available, then the general test directions may be translated into the student’s native language. This translation cannot go beyond the scope and meaning of the directions. Test questions/individual test question directions may not be translated. Practice items also may not be translated as they are embedded in the test.

SC READY Spring 2023 Test Administration Manual.pdf
SC 2023-24 Test Administration Manual- Online Administration.pdf

DRC Insight - Testing Accommodations

The DRC BEACON test offers English Text-to-Speech (TTS) on all adaptive (CAT) forms and Spanish TTS on Spanish math fixed forms. TTS uses a computer voice to read test materials aloud to students. TTS (English or Spanish) must be marked in the DRC INSIGHT Portal BEFORE the test ticket is printed and, if properly enabled, will appear in the “Accommodations” section of a student’s test ticket as “TTS.”

The use of TTS for a test is at the teacher’s discretion—a student does NOT need to have read-aloud noted in an IEP or 504 Plan.

Any student using TTS for their test should use headphones for all TTS-enabled sessions or test in a separate setting.

DRC BEACON also offers accommodations available on Fixed Forms.  The following accommodations are available and should be marked in the DRC INSIGHT Portal BEFORE a test ticket is generated: 


Translated versions of the TAM administration directions, for online and paper/pencil testing, will be posted to the DRC INSIGHT Portal for SC READY and EOCEP. Separate SC READY and EOCEP documents will be provided for each of the following languages:


Approved Word-to-Word Dictionaries

ACT-ApprovedBilingualDictionariesList.pdf