Please review the following information carefully.
ACCESS for ELLs and Alternate ACCESS test results will be available electronically in WIDA AMS on Friday, May 15th. DRC, the test contractor, will not mail printed reports to schools on May 26 as originally scheduled due to school closures and stay-at-home orders related to COVID-19. On May 13, District and School ACCESS Test Coordinators will receive an email from DRC outlining steps to retrieve individual, school, and district reports from WIDA AMS.
Once schools reopen, we will notify schools regarding delivery of printed reports, which must be provided to parents/guardians within a reasonable time after they are received.
In the meantime, schools may wish, but are not required, to provide ACCESS results electronically to parents, either through secure email, "parent portal," or other secure method used by the district to communicate confidential information to parents. If reports are provided electronically, the school must do so securely (for example, through a password-protected email) and in the language of the student's home. Check with your school or district IT department to determine whether a secure means exists to transmit results to parents.
Schools may also wish to notify parents that results are available should they wish to contact a school representative to discuss them.
Schools are not required to send Individual Student Reports (ISRs) to the home of the parent/guardian until the school receives printed reports, likely next fall. However, schools may wish to consider printing individual student reports from WIDA AMS (in the language of the home) and mailing them to parents who do not have the ability to receive them electronically.
If a school or district chooses to print and send an ISR to the student's home, we encourage downloading sample letters to parents (in the language of the home, where available) to accompany the reports. Sample letters should be copied onto school or district letterhead, signed by or otherwise indicated with the name of the appropriate school or district official, and sent to the home of the parents with the actual ISR. Parent letters are available in 22 languages.
The following resources are available and optional to include with ISRs sent to the home of the student, and may also be used during meetings with parents:
Please see information below on additional WIDA Score Report Resources.
Two webinars will be offered to District ACCESS for ELLs Test Coordinators that provide information on accessing and interpreting student, school, and district-level results in WIDA AMS and at other locations online where results are available (e.g., on the Department's website and security portal). Webinars will be held on May 19 from 3:00–4:30 PM and May 21 from 11:00–12:30 PM.
Registration will be limited to one participant log-in per district unless your District ACCESS for ELLs Test Coordinator receives an email indicating a different number. Participants will receive information on how to log in after they have registered. Slides will be emailed to registered participants one day prior to the webinar date. Registered participants are encouraged to share the slides and information learned from the webinars with others in their district as necessary. Please register here.
If you notice that several ISRs or other reports appear incomplete, it may be due to data irregularities and inaccuracies in student demographic information that can be corrected locally during the Post-Reporting Data Validation period which occurs between May 26 and June 3.
Test coordinators will be asked to verify and update student demographics in WIDA AMS for any student whose results are missing or whose demographic information is incorrect. A separate email will be sent on May 22 by DRC with instructions for completing Post-Reporting Data Validation.
Scoring appeals and booklet search requests must be submitted to the Department through this online form.
These requests must be submitted to the Department using the online form link provided above by June 26. You will be informed by the Department if your request can be processed, since only a limited number of requests can be submitted to the testing vendor.
Districts and schools are responsible for reporting any errors in student participation (for example, students who were exited from EL status prior to ACCESS testing, but were coded incorrectly as EL in March 2020 SIMS) to the Department by July 15 at ACCESS@doe.mass.edu . Errors in student participation cannot be corrected after that date.
The "Guide to Assigning Scores for Missing Domains on ACCESS for ELLs Tests for English Learners with Disabilities" is now posted on the DESE ACCESS web page. This document describes the method the Department will use, beginning in 2020, to assign a score to a missing ACCESS test domain in cases where EL students with certain disabilities were unable to take a domain test due to an unavailable accommodation.
Assigned scores will provide students with an overall ACCESS score which will allow districts to make EL reclassification decisions as well as providing the student with a growth-to-proficiency (benchmark) calculation. Assigned scores will be reported this fall in the Security Portal DropBox—2020 School and District ACCESS for ELLs results file. Assigned scores will not be included on the Individual Student Reports (ISRs) sent to parents or on any other report located in WIDA AMS.
WIDA has developed a Training Module for WIDA AMS: Accessing Score Reports that provides information on how to access student reports, frequency reports, and student roster reports from WIDA AMS. Additionally, WIDA has recorded a webinar on interpreting score reports.
Information about ACCESS reports and how each report can be interpreted and applied is available in the ACCESS for ELLs Interpretive Guide for Score Reports and in the Alternate ACCESS for ELLs Interpretive Guide for Score Reports.
Other available resources include:
Thank you for your attention to this information.
This EL Assessment Update is also available online. Please contact Student Assessment Services with any questions about ACCESS for ELLs testing at ACCESS@doe.mass.edu or by phone at 781-338-3625.
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 135 Santilli Highway, Everett, MA 02149
Voice: (781) 338-3000 TTY: (800) 439-2370
Disclaimer: A reference in this website to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm, or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the public and does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.