Assessments: District, State and Graduation

When special education students participate in district-wide, state, or graduation assessments, they must receive the same accommodations that they receive when participating in everyday classroom assessments.

Whenever assessment accommodations are described in the IEP, be sure to include the conditions under which they apply. This is particularly important because some standardized assessments have built-in accessibility features that may not be made available to the student during classroom assessments. For example, a student with reading needs might have their classroom assessments read to them by a person. However, text-to-speech software is incorporated into the math and science MCA tests, and under these circumstances the student may not need a person reading the test to them. Specifying conditions in the accommodation helps us to account for these variations and avoid the need for amendments later on. Here are a few examples:

• "When given an assessment where all students are not provided with the opportunity to have the material read aloud, assessment administrators will provide XXX with the opportunity to have the assessment read to them by a person, audio recording, or screen reading software."

• "When given timed assessments where rate of performance is not integral to obtaining a meaningful score, assessment administrators will provide XXX with extended time (specify: time and a half/double time/triple time/extended over multiple days)." (NOTE: This is designed to not apply to timed CBM probes.)

• "When given timed assessments without opportunities to take breaks, assessment administrators will provide XXX with stop-the-clock breaks, upon [his/her] request, during the testing session."

• "When given an assessment that is administered to all students in a large group, assessment administrators will provide XXX with the option of completing the assessment in a small group setting."

Prior to the administration of standardized assessments, district testing coordinators contact case managers to obtain updated information about students' needed accommodations. Materials must be ordered, test settings organized, and staff scheduled in order to facilitate provision of all needed accommodations.

The Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) are the state tests that help districts measure student progress toward Minnesota’s academic standards and also meet federal and state legislative requirements. The Minnesota Test of Academic Skills (MTAS) is an alternative assessment that a small portion of students are eligible for. The MCA is administered:

• Reading: Grades 3-8 and 10

• Math: Grades 3-8 and 11

• Science: Grades 5, 8, and once in high school

During MCA administration, "supports" are offered to all students who take the test, such as the option of small group testing. While these supports are available to all students, if they are appropriate for a special education student and are accommodations the student receives on classroom assessments, they must still be noted in the IEP.

The annually-updated MCA & MTAS Procedures Manual includes specific details regarding accommodations available for special education students (Chapter 5) and general supports available to all students (Chapter 8).

The MTAS may be appropriate for a student with a significant cognitive disability if all of the following requirements have been met:

1. The IEP team first considered the student’s ability to access the MCA, with or without accommodations.

2. The IEP team reviewed the student’s instructional program to ensure that the student is receiving instruction linked to the general education curriculum to the extent appropriate. If instruction is not linked to the general education curriculum, then the IEP team must review the student’s goals and determine how access to the general curriculum will be provided.

3. The IEP team determined the student’s cognitive functioning to be significantly below age expectations. The team also determined that the student’s disability has a significant impact on his or her ability to function in multiple environments, including home, school and community.

4. The IEP team determined that the student needs explicit and intensive instruction and/or extensive supports in multiple settings to acquire, maintain and generalize academic and life skills in order to actively participate in school, work, home and community environments.

5. The IEP team documented, in the IEP, reasons the MCA would not be an appropriate measure of the student’s academic progress and how the student would participate in statewide testing.

MCA or MTAS

The annual statewide assessments (i.e., the MCA or MTAS) also function as graduation assessment requirements. However, students are not required to achieve a specified score or level of proficiency on any statewide assessment in order to graduate from high school.

Civics Test

In addition, students enrolled in grade 9 must take a civics test with the objective of correctly answering at least 30 of 50 questions. However, students are not required to correctly answer 30 civics test questions in order to graduate from high school. If the IEP team determines that the standard civics assessment is inappropriate for the student, an alternative assessment on civics content may be used.

College Entrance Exam

Finally, to the extent that state funding is available, districts must pay the cost, one time, for students in grade 11 or 12 to take a nationally normed college entrance exam at the student’s high school during the school day (e.g., the ACT or ACCUPLACER). Students are not required to complete a college entrance exam in order to graduate from high school.

ACT approves accommodations for students with disabilities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Refer to the ACT Accommodations webpage for more details. Accommodations requests must be submitted by the late registration deadline, and because ACT frequently rejects initial applications and requests additional documentation, it is highly recommended that school teams and families begin collaborating on this task well in advance of the school's annual ACT testing date. The most frequently accessed ACT-approved accommodations are:

• Extended time (either double or time and one half)

• Standard time with stop-the-clock breaks

• Alternate test format (braille, audio, reader)

Only tests taken without accommodations or with ACT-approved accommodations are eligible to be submitted to colleges as part of the application process. Locally-decided non-ACT-approved accommodations result in test scores that cannot be submitted to colleges.