Final scores from the redesigned State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, tests will not be released until Aug. 16, shortening the time Frisco ISD typically uses to identify and help the students who may be struggling academically.
At the same time, the redesign is expected to provide a better understanding of student learning and progress within FISD, said Christy Fiori, FISD’s teaching and learning executive director.
“[The changes] are all good things that we're excited about,” Fiori said. “However, it is a change for our students, and it is different.”
The specifics
The late scores are the result of a full STAAR redesign from the Texas Education Agency first announced in 2019 following the approval of House Bill 3906.
Among other updates, such as a new online format, the test’s multiple choice sections cannot take up more than 75% of the exam to better line up with how students originally learned the material, said Gary Nye, FISD’s managing director of Assessment and Accountability.
“[The TEA’s] goal is to make the STAAR test more similar to the classroom experience,” Nye said.
Part of the classroom experience includes allowing students to explain the reasoning behind their answer, something the new STAAR test takes into account with evidence-based writing and other non-multiple-choice formats.
What happens next?
While the scores will not be released until Aug. 16, FISD staff are already planning for an expedited tutoring schedule.
“Getting [scores] later doesn't change what we do,” Fiori said. “It just expedites the time. We don't want kids to wait if they're needing interventions and support based off of these results.”
STAAR results also help district officials understand the effectiveness of school curriculum leading up to the test, said Pam Orr, managing director of elementary teaching and learning at FISD.
“We look at the data from across the district and identify trends,” Orr said. “If we see that there are certain content areas or certain standards that everybody struggled on ... that's a good reflection for us to see if we need to make any curricular adjustments.”
Stay tuned
STAAR scores for students in the third grade or higher will be posted on the district’s Home Access Center once released by the TEA.
