5037 Including Students with Disabilities in State and Districtwide Assessments

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 requires school districts to include students with disabilities in state and districtwide assessments with appropriate accommodations where necessary (34CFR 300.18). This would include all state and district criterion-referenced (CRT) and norm-referenced (NRT) tests.

The Individual Education Plan (IEP) team will be responsible for identifying the extent of participation in the assessment process and in specifying the testing accommodations. These determinations will be documented in the IEP. All students with disabilities who actively participate in the general education curriculum will be expected to participate in the state and districtwide assessment program with or without appropriate accommodations.

Options for participation include:

A.      Participation without accommodations;

B.      Participation in all subtests (content areas) or specific subtests of the assessment instrument with appropriate accommodations, as needed;

C.      Participation in specific subtests of the CRT/NRT with appropriate accommodations and alternate assessment for the remaining content area;

D.      Participation in the alternate assessment for all content areas as allowed by state law.

Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, may participate in the Oklahoma Alternate Assessment Program (OOAP) (34CFR & 200.6(d)(1). The alternate assessment is designed to measure progress toward IEP goals at the student’s instructional level in the same academic areas as students in the general education curriculum. The alternate achievement of the content standards is required in daily instruction as well as statewide assessment and the performance expectations aligned with the statewide general assessment are not appropriate even with the accommodations.

Assessment decisions are made on an annual basis by the IEP team and students must meet certain criteria to be eligible for an alternate assessment. The IEP team determines that a student with disabilities will not participate in the state and districtwide assessment process. It will document why participation is not appropriate and identify the alternate assessment procedure and instrument that will be utilized to measure student progress. The only appropriate justification for a student to not participate in the state and districtwide assessment program is when the IEP team determines that even with accommodations, the student would be unable to demonstrate at least some of the knowledge and skill tested through the state and districtwide assessment.

The district’s alternate assessment procedures will include, but not be limited by, the utilization of standardized developmental checklists, off-grade standardized testing in specific content area, and the Oklahoma Criteria Checklist for Assessing Students with disabilities on Alternate Assessments.

 

TESTING ACCOMMODATIONS

Testing accommodations are changes in the way a test is administered. Testing accommodations are intended to

offset distortions in test scores caused by a disability without invalidating or changing what the test measures. The IEP team will determine the appropriate testing accommodations for each student with a disability. Testing accommodations are not permitted unless specified on the student’s IEP and allowable by state law. Only

accommodations that do not invalidate the test results may be utilized. Appropriate testing accommodations should not change or replace the skills that the test targets or is designed to measure. Classroom accommodations that have been identified on the IEP will be permissible as testing accommodations as long as these accommodations do not invalidate the testing instrument.

Types of testing accommodations which are acceptable are outlined annually in the OSTP Accommodations for Students with an IEP or 504 Plan.

Invalidation of a test score means that changes in the test presentation, content or response format have resulted in changes in what the test measures. Therefore, the inference made from a given test score is inaccurate.

Accommodations that have the potential to invalidate a test score include:

A.      Reading a reading test to the student;

B.      Using a calculator on a mathematics test that is designed to measure mental computation;

C.      Using spelling tools on writing or language arts tests that score the correctness of spelling;

D.      Paraphrasing that changes the meaning of the text or consistently makes the material easier to read or comprehend;

E.       Requesting additional time to test beyond the timelines specified by the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

 

Adopted 7/8/02

Revised 12/13/04

Revised 1/16/06

Revised 12/13/21