Developing an Assessment Participation Action Plan: A Tool for District Leaders

This resource is designed to be used by district leaders to develop an action plan to increase student participation in assessments, including annual statewide assessments and districtwide assessments, (e.g., interim assessments). Federal regulations require states and districts to administer an annual state assessment to students in grades 3-8 and once in high school in the content areas of reading/language arts, mathematics, and science. State assessments are aligned to state academic content standards and are used to measure student progress toward mastering the standards.

This tool focuses on the federally required state general and alternate assessments in reading/language arts, mathematics, and science administered in grades 3-8 and once in high school. However, the tool can easily be adapted to develop a student assessment participation action plan for interim assessments. The purpose of this resource is to provide a tool for districts that wish to improve student assessment participation. The tool provides guidance on how district leaders can develop an assessment participation action plan. It describes a series of steps that support the development of the action plan. These steps include: (a) forming teams for designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the action plan; (b) collecting and analyzing district data on state assessment participation; (c) collecting and analyzing school assessment participation; (d) compiling contextual information; (e) identifying district challenges to reach 95 percent participation; (f) designing and implementing action plan steps; (g) monitoring implementation of the plan; and (h) evaluating the plan. Districts may customize this tool as needed to meet their needs. See https://nceo.umn.edu/docs/OnlinePubs/DistrictAssessmentParticipationActionPlan.docx to download the Microsoft Word version of this resource.