Assessment

Student Achievement & Assessment

  • As a support for data driven decision making Avondale Elementary School District has employed a Student Achievement Assessment Coordinator. The goal of this position is to analyze testing data to provide meaningful data to teachers and administrators to help develop effective and efficient educational programs to promote student achievement.

    This position is also key in the coordination of state and district assessments, which included quarterly performance based math and reading benchmarks, DIBELS, and State Testing.

State Testing

  • The Arizona Department of Education is requiring all students to take the state AZM2 assessment in ELA and Math and the Science AzSCI test. These state tests are to measure student performance on Arizona College and Career Standards.  For more information, please click here. There are many resources available and practice items. 
     
    Students in grades 3-8th will take the assessment online with the use of computers.  Students in 5th and 8th will also be taking the Science test.  Even though the assessment is given online, ALL students are required to be in-person to take this test. Schools sites are working on creating schedules in order to follow mitigation strategies to provide small class settings to complete testing. 
     
    The testing windows are below. Testing could take from 3-5 days during this window.
     
    Students in the 3rd grade must meet the requirements of the Move on When Reading law. This is determined through the AzM2 state assessment at the end of 3rd grade. For more information, please click here.
     

District Assessments

  • AESD is currently using the assessment system Galileo for formative and summative assessments in all subjects. Teachers are able to create mini assessments to check how students are mastering the standards throughout the year. Students are taking these assessments online in order to prepare them for the state assessment online. 

    AESD uses DIBELS to measure growth in reading for students in kindergarten-3rd grade. Students are tested three times a year at the district level in the following measures: First Sound Fluency, Letter Naming Fluency, Nonsense Word Fluency, Phonemic Sound Fluency, Oral Reading Fluency, and the DAZE. Progress is continually measured by teachers.

Standards-Based Report Cards for Grades K-5

  • AESD utilizes a standards based report card that provides more information about what your students know, understand, and can do. This report card is the result of work done by a committee of teachers, and administrators who wished to improve communication about how students are achieving on the standards. The report card is aligned with the College and Career Readiness Standards and has been designed to give the maximum amount of information in a clear format. The report card shows how well students are progressing at meeting state standards. It is federal law that we must teach, assess and report progress by standards. 

    The Kindergarten through 5th grade report card proficiency scale will be updated to align to the AzMerit State Assessment.  The new proficiency scale on the K-5 report cards are as follows:

    • HP = Highly Proficient/Altamente Competente
    • P = Proficient/Competente
    • PP = Partially Proficient/Parcialmente Competente
    • MP = Minimally Proficient/Mínimamente Competente
    • NG = Not yet assessed/Aún no evaluado

    Parents: Each school has a a Curriculum/ Open House Night in August to explain the report cards in more detail. If there are any other questions, please contact your student's teacher or building principal. 

    For additional information, please refer to the following video link: Common Core Standards Video Explanation

Student Achievement Assessment Contact