MCAS Alternate Assessment (MCAS-Alt)

MCAS-Alt Spring Quarterly Update — May 2025

This MCAS-Alt quarterly update includes some important announcements and reminders for viewing results of recently submitted MCAS-Alts.

  1. Preliminary MCAS-Alt Results

    The 2025 preliminary MCAS-Alt results will be reported in your school's Dropbox on the DESE's Security Portal on June 9. These results are displayed as MCAS-Alt Feedback Forms (FFs) for your students and will be available in a PDF format. Please ask your principal (or school leader) to review these FFs with you. Educators and administrators should compare copies of the students' strands (e.g., Mathematics - Number and Operations) to the students' FFs and review the included scoring comments, as the specific comments are essential for understanding why a specific strand earned the reported score.

    The scored MCAS-Alts will be returned to schools in fall 2025. See the Administrators' Corner below for instructions on how to view, download, and print the FFs.

  2. Administrators' Corner

    Use the following instructions to view and download preliminary MCAS-Alt results.

    To view the MCAS-Alt Feedback Forms, principals should do the following:

    • Log in to the Department's Security Portal (for assistance logging in, contact your district or organization Directory Administrator).
    • Click on the Application List.
    • Choose DropBox Central.
    • Click on MCAS 2025 Data.
    • Choose school name (cannot be in the district view).
    • Click on MCASalt_FeedbackForms2025 and download the PDFs to distribute to teachers for review.

  3. MCAS-Alt Score Appeals

    Once preliminary results are available, a principal or their designee may submit an MCAS-Alt score appeal, provided the following criteria are met:

    • The school has retained a copy of the MCAS-Alt materials.
    • The school's materials provide evidence that an MCAS-Alt strand (e.g., ELA Writing) was scored incorrectly.

    Score appeals must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, June 20. Score appeals cannot be submitted after June 20.

    To ensure that each score appeal has merit, the principal, director, or superintendent must review the following materials when submitting an appeal:

    • the MCAS-Alt Feedback Form (FF) from the scored assessment
    • the photocopy of the evidence supporting a claim that the score on the FF does not reflect an accurate score based on the scoring rubric

    After submitting the score appeal, print the on-screen confirmation for your records. Please see the frequently asked questions about MCAS-Alt score appeals. If your school plans to submit a score appeal, be aware that DESE will not accept the following:

    • submission of additional portfolio evidence
    • requests to alter information previously submitted
    • claims that a clerical error was made by the educator in the original portfolio

    Results of MCAS-Alt score appeals will be mailed to schools by the end of July. If you have any questions, please contact mcas@mass.gov or 781-338-3625.

    Thank you for your attention to this information, and have a wonderful summer!

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
MCAS Alternate Assessment (MCAS-Alt)





Last Updated: May 20, 2025



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