001All right, I see the time is 9:00 a.m. and our participant count is slowly steady increasing. And so, just in the honor of everyone's time, we are going to go ahead and get started for today's webinar. Um this is the House Bill 8 assessment updates webinar. Thank you all for being here with us this morning. We are excited to provide some information to you all um and hope that it supports you. In today's webinar, this session will be recorded. That recording will be placed in the LMS in the upcoming week um along with the presentation materials. The session will follow a clear agenda for which our presenters will outline for you the sections of for which the information will be provided. And uniquely today in today's webinar, it is scheduled for a specific time. And
002so, given that time, we are allowing the feature for the Q&A to be open to all participants in order to submit your questions. However, given the time constraints, there may not be the opportunity for us to respond to all of those questions. Nevertheless, we are here and committed to support you. And so, we will be using utilizing those questions in order to support and provide materials and resources to you um and be able to update our FAQ section so that what it is that you need regarding House Bill 8, we are seemingly providing. In today's session, we are honored to have our two amazing senior division directors. Um the first is Kevin, and he is the senior division director for our student assessment team. And we also have Chris, who is the senior division director
003for the assessment design, development, and quality, our ADQ team. And so, both of these amazing directors will be providing with today's information. And without being said, I'm going to pass it over to Kevin. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr. McMillan. Uh and thank you, Robert, uh Region 13 for setting this up for us. Uh yeah, we're just happy to be here um and just ready to share some exciting updates uh for House Bill 8 um as we transition to the new assessment program. Uh so, Lakita, can we go to the next slide? All right. So, three quick topics today. Um I'm going to do a quick bill overview, uh then turn it over to Chris to talk a little bit about assessment design and development plans, and then just some timelines for the House Bill 8
004planning um and transition. So, first off for the bill overview, um I think it's out there by now uh that House Bill 8 passed during the 89th second special session uh requiring TEA uh to transition to a new assessment program uh that should be totally instructionally supportive uh by the year uh 2027-2028. So, uh I think we all know that the last administration of the current STAAR test uh will be spring of 2027 for 3 through 8 um and then December of 2027 for EOC. So, EOC's got a little bit longer, uh but one more year for for spring uh STAAR for 3 through 8. Um the purposes of House Bill 8 uh is that we're going is that we will create um and implement the instructionally supportive statewide program that supports progress monitoring. It
005is balanced, innovative, and streamlined, and always based on the essential knowledge and and skills. Next slide, please. Um some of the House Bill 8 requirements did begin this school year. Um so, a few of these things, not going to read all of this, but the the top one we are very excited about this. It's starting this summer. Teachers that participate in our educator committees will start to get paid $200 per day. So, definitely excited to reward great teachers with a little bit of funding with that. Not a lot took advantage of the Monday testing, but that is allowed now. Um we added some test anxiety mitigation language to the manuals. Um a few other things. I think the thing that we are most excited about, besides paying teachers, is probably that bottom one for the
006automatic rescore process. We were not required to do that until spring of 2028, but to help districts and you know, kind of help districts save a little bit of money for those rescores that were not changing, we were able to add that and start that December of 2025. And then we will really see that with this spring's results for those ECRs where students were one point away from the next performance level, we took those back and those ECRs were automatically rescored by humans at the state level for all districts across the state. So, definitely excited about that enhancement. Next slide. >> [snorts] >> All right, moving into House Bill 8 and what we're calling the student success tool or SST. The current local assessment plans can be varied depending on the district and they it
007can be inconsistent if we're if we're looking district to district. So, we have always have our classroom format of assessments. That's that's the good stuff, you know, exit tickets, short quizzes, things like that. District benchmarks look different in different districts. Optional interims, we have our state interims that we that we provide, Uh, but then there's also other vendors out there that are doing other assessment products that districts are using as well. And then of course we have the state summative use for accountability. Um, in the new system starting in 2027-28, um, the district benchmarks will no longer be allowed, um, in education code. Um, the the main thing is that this should be uh, should be a good system uh, to recapture instructional time for teachers and students. Uh, that's the biggest part for this.
008Um, we will not touch classroom formative assessments. Though, that's where, you know, a lot of the magic happens. So, that it is still allowed. Um, it's just some of the benchmarks are are not going to be allowed. And we will be coming out um, in our next uh, versions of future FAQS what constitutes as a benchmark assessment. That is questions that that we are definitely getting. So, we will have uh, more guidance on that coming soon. But, for the House Bill 8 changes, uh, beginning and middle of the year, um, will be provided uh, by the state. Um, it is optional for EOCS, but for 3 through 8 those will be um, a mandated beginning and middle of the year assessment that we will create. There is an alternative uh, list of vendors that Chris
009will talk about here in a little bit. And that list is pending uh, that that districts can choose um, instead of our beginning and middle of the year. Uh, but we will have an amazing product uh, that we know y'all are going to like. Um, and we hope y'all y'all will choose our product. And then of course the end of the year, um, that all students in the state will take, uh, that will be the only assessment used for accountability. So, all students take end of year, that is the assessment for accountability. Um, next slide. I know we're kind of talking fast, um, but we have a lot of slides and not a lot of time. Uh, student success tool uh, will build on the key strengths of STAR. Uh, items will always be vetted
010by Texas teachers. Um, there's not a single item that shows up on a STAR test. There's not a single item that will show up on an SST test in the future that has not been vetted and approved by uh, committees of of current Texas teachers. Uh, so making sure, you know, it it's subject specific, uh, aligned to the TEKS. So, we will always implement those procedures. Um, the other one that we're definitely proud of is that our products are always uh, um, accessible by all by all students. So, we offer the comprehensive list of accommodations. Um, specifically thinking things like content language supports which are very popular and help, you know, a large uh, population of students out there. We will definitely continue those as we move to the student success tool. And then finally,
011I don't think other states they definitely don't do it like like Texas does, but uh, the unparalleled transparency. Like our end-of-year items, we put them on our family portal. Uh, you can see the items, you can see the questions, you can see rationales. That's for educators, that's for parents, anybody that has access to to the students. Um, and we're kind of excited. Uh, what do we got? A few weeks, uh, June 10th and June 16th for this spring STAR's release. So, uh, get your get your parents uh, to the family portal because it's it's really good stuff and it really gives them next steps for how the parents can help their their child. Um, but with that said, that those processes will move forward uh, with SST. So, we are going to continue all these
012processes we transition to the new system. And then finally for for my piece, um, results are are a big thing. Uh, quicker results. Um, right now we get results to districts in 21 days, uh, 3 weeks. Uh, Uh, SST will require um, uh, the results to be delivered within 48 hours for the end of the year and then by the second year for beginning and middle of the year, um, it will be the next day. So, immediate results for for kids after they take our test. Um, the other pieces on here is we will be developing the norm reference growth within the school year, um, and then, um, have some pretty good data, um, platform integrations that we're not ready to share just yet, but we think you're going to like some of our new,
013um, reporting tools uh, that teachers will be able to use. Um, so at that point, I think I'm going to turn it over to Chris. >> Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, y'all. I'm so glad to be here sharing our information about our SST implementation. Um, we are going to talk a little bit about assessment design and development plans. Um, next slide, please. So, one of the things that Kevin alluded to and is probably one of the single most asked questions that we get, um, around SST implementation are the alternative lists for the beginning and middle of year assessments. So, House Bill 8, um, mandates that every student take the end of year assessment that is going to be created by TEA, um, and we'll talk about what that one's going to look like as
014well, but there's also, of course, the the caveat that we have beginning and middle of year tests for all students. But, we in addition to the tests that we're going to be creating within TEA with our vendors, um, there is, uh, an avenue for additional assessments to be allowed in the state. And we are currently in the process of of vetting, uh, potential vendors for that list. So, that list is something that folks are very interested in. We know fall 27 is is quickly approaching. We feel it in our souls within the assessment group as well, by the way. And we are attempting to get that list out to y'all as soon as we can. However, we need to work through a process. And that process is that we have right now open a call
015for vendors to apply to be part of the alternative list. There's a whole bunch of application information that they need to submit research information to ensure that any measure that we look at to put on our list is valid, reliable, and and can be used as part of the larger system. So, we're in the process right now of of working through we've had vendor application start. We've had a question and answer that's been posted for the vendors on that. And we will be then doing an academic review and and in order to make sure that all of these assessments will will be good and will be valid, reliable, and produce good results for students within the state. We anticipate a provisional list to be approved at the end of this summer so that folks can
016think about what assessments they might need to either contract with or get out of contracts with if they want to transition to SST. So, we're going to talk a little bit more about that a little later, but also understanding that this is a multi-phase process. Those provisional approvals that happen at the end of this summer will be good for 2 years. That that um and within that 2-year period after the provisional assessment, there may be additional criteria or requirements in order to bring the assessments into more comparability so that that some things we may work with vendors to try to make minor modifications to things in order to make the results more comparable between products. So, starting in summer 2028, we will have that final approved list and there's no guarantee like we're we're trying
017to keep as many options as we can for folks within the state. We know that there's a lot of pieces and parts within districts and other places that that folks want this um you know, to have this variety. Um but we do also need to make sure that the system works. So, final approval will be in summer 2028, but end of this summer we will be sending out those provisional lists. Um next slide, please. So, let's talk about the SST test design basics. What are the things that we within TEA um along with our vendors will be producing in order to be ready for the fall 2027, that's getting close to being only a year away, um beginning of year assessment. So, we're going to have these beginning of year, middle of year, and end
018of year assessments. The calendars will be set um and and they're already put out on the website, but also to be quite transparent, um House Bill 8 really specifies a lot of things about assessment and the and the design of the assessment within the legislation, including the calendar that for which we're we're working around. So, um folks have asked questions about, you know, can we move it for this or that? Um un- unfortunately, the the legislature um really was prescriptive in terms of those calendars, including the fact that the end of year assessment will be broken into two parts for RLA. And that's only RLA. All of the other assessments will be a single, uh, admin in May. But, um, RLA will be split into, uh, early April for the extended constructed response item, and
019then the remainder of the items in May. But, let's talk a little bit about those beginning and middle of year assessments. Want to be very, very clear that these are not just the current interim assessments the TEA is giving. Um, these are are assessments that we are building from the ground up, including some really interesting, um, reporting that will hope, hopefully, help with progress monitoring first to support local instruction. Um, they are going to have the ability to go off grade for, uh, math and reading language arts um, uh, whenever possible. So, we're still working through some of the pieces and parts around the adaptivity. We will have more details as that comes out, but we are working to make these, uh, a assessments as adaptive as possible. Because for everything except RLA, we are
020committed to item level adaptivity within these assessments. So, students will not see the same groups of items or or patterns of items. Um, they will see, uh, items that best match where their ability is. So, for RLA, however, uh, item level adaptivity is not actually recommended as a best practice because RLA, we are keeping our passages, even though overall we're shortening passage lengths in order to to meet some of the time requirements that we have within the legislation. Um, we still want to be able to have passages that have some meat to them. And so we we believe that the best uh the best way to configure those adaptive assessments is to do uh passage adaptive set. So student will see a set of items along with the passage. And after the student completes those,
021the engine will then pick the next best set for RLA. So it's slightly different for RLA, but we are committed to as much adaptivity as we can so that students get the best forms for where they are in their learning. Uh end of year will remain fixed form. The The reason we're really committed to the fixed form for end of year is because it really allows for full form item release. That way everyone sees what's what items students are being held accountable for at for the tests that actually feeds into the accountability system. So keeping in mind beginning of year and middle of year are not currently any part of the accountability system, it will remain only end of year feeding into that. So we want to retain that that transparency that we can have
022for folks to be able to see everything. We can't release um items from the adaptive bank because it is such a large bank and we can't refill that every single year. So another feature of our new assessments uh is that we will mean to except for the extended constructed response item in early April for RLA all of the other items for the beginning and middle of year as well as the end of year assessments will be machine scored only. So what that means is we will be retaining um item types like multiple choice, multiple select but we will not be able to use a lot of the the new TEIs that we had put into place around the the last redesign because those require human adjudication. What that means basically is that humans have to
023get involved in looking at all of the responses in order to ensure that we've captured all of them accurately. Um, we do that currently on STAR. It's behind the scenes, y'all don't even have to see it, but given the the transparency that we have within the state that it's not only every item, right? Every student response every score point is is monitored very closely and we need to ensure that we have accurate scoring. So, in in in order to do accurate scoring within the time frame required, um, the the speed with which we are going to commit to results, you know, after the first year, immediate results beginning in middle of the year, not waiting any time at all, and for that end of year, uh, within 48 hours after the close of the window,
024those are you know, in terms of making sure that every single item answer and score point is correct, um, that's not a lot of room for for any, uh, QC. And so, we're committed to making sure that scores are accurate in addition to giving valid and reliable information. So, um, as I say, the test results, uh, we're looking at for beginning and middle of year immediately after year one. Um, we're going to be producing Texas-specific norm results as well, which is one of the requirements of House Bill 8, and we're very, very excited about that to to make sure that we are giving information that is important for for our state, um, as as opposed to just the as opposed to the entire country. We can look at at other, uh, norms as well in
025the future. >> [snorts] >> Um, and also, we all are absolutely committed to making sure that the fixed forms, uh, that we have uh, accommodated forms, sorry, for our special forms in order to ensure that students are all getting tested in the way that they need to be tested, um and that we believe that that's uh different than some of the external interim vendors out there. So, we're we're excited about what we're putting together for beginning and middle of year. It is um can we go to the next slide, please? So, I do want to hit in on a couple of points that I was just going to say, so I called for the next slide. Um I've hit on the adaptive nature of the beginning of year middle of year tests. We're excited about
026that. They are going to be shorter tests. Uh House Bill 8 does legislate uh the length of the test for the 85th percentile of students, and it was it and those are pretty short testing times. Uh 60 minutes for the youngest kids beginning of year, and I think uh you know, we we get up into about 105 minutes for the longest test for end of year, and somewhere in between. Uh those are are relatively short events, so we need to make sure that um we're asking fewer questions, and we're lightening the leading reading load. We have uh shortened passage specifications, and we are creating passages and passage sets that are about half the length of STAR passages currently. Uh those passages, by the way, are out the items associated with them are out at committee
027review starting next month. Um one of the questions I get around the shorter passage length, and I saw it in the chat, so I'm I'm taking a sneak peek as I'm going along here. Um some folks are concerned about coverage of the TEKS, and how this is a fair uh experience for students. We will be looking at the assessed curriculum. Right now, we've got some TEK some SEs that are marked readiness, which are tested every single year, and some that are marked supporting, which we then rotate around to ensure coverage every 3 years or so. We will be looking at that breakdown to ensure that we have the right number of readiness standards. So, we might take a slight reduction in the amount of standards that are tested every year. We will then move those
028into supporting and move around that that group in order to maintain coverage. We will not be in any way truncating the standards. We will be expecting folks to to teach every standard, and the shorter test is actually advantageous for students. The the the scoring of tests is not based on a percentage correct. It's based on item response theory, which creates an ability estimate for each student not based on how the percentage of items they get correct versus incorrect. It's about how much information they get from every item that is correct. So, we're not taking away opportunity as a what we're really doing is allowing a shorter test length so that kids are less tired through the testing process and will have better attention to each item as they go through it. So, we're very, very
029excited about these changes because we feel like those will be improvements that will help students show really what they know and can do. Additionally, for writing, um we are going to retain the extended constructed response. As I've said, it will be a stand-alone item um in in in earlier in the in the winter before the spring final exam of the spring end of year. But, we will be changing that from a 10-point rubric to a 6-point rubric. So, currently, um each ECR is double-scored on two rubrics, a three-point rubric and a two-point rubric, ideas and conventions. Uh Uh, with the the narrowing of the points for the rest of the test, we felt that leaving this item at 10 points would give it more importance than it currently has in the blueprint. And so, we've
030also we've proportionally shortened that. Uh, these rubrics along with the blueprints are also going to be reviewed by teachers this summer when they're out of committees, but we're anticipating posting these all of this information here in the fall. The other piece about the ECRs is that we're we're no longer having a gatekeeper zero. That gatekeeper zero was if a student didn't get any ideas points, if they didn't answer the question, they couldn't get any conventions points no matter how well formed the the response is. So, a student can do that. However, we are going to be implementing um, a condition code such that if a student really doesn't engage at all with the topic, it will be noted that they are off topic. So, um, this does mean also specifically based on what I said
031about the scoring that SCRs will not be used starting in fall 2027 or beyond. So, that was um, one of the tradeoffs for that faster scoring, but we believe that we can do do well with the items item types that we have remaining. Um, also we've got of course the ECR re-scoring which started this year and will continue on forevermore cuz we think that that's a a wonderful enhancement to things. All right. Next slide, please. So, that's really all of the the vision around the the design and the blueprints um, that we're we're going on. So, let's now talk a little bit about timelines for our planning and transition. So, what can you expect to see? Well, if you look at that first column, this this slide's getting a little dated in that um we're
032already to summer 2026. Um we are working through um our getting our reporting prototypes together. Why is that important? Because we want folks to be able to see what SST can produce before they have to make that decision about whether to use uh the internal SST beginning of year, middle of year, or if they're going to choose to to contract with uh an external provider. Keeping in mind that those external providers are not going to be those will have to come out of district funds. The the state SST beginning of year, middle of year will be at no cost to the districts. So, we want folks though to have full information. I was told at the beginning of this we we can't make any decisions without reports, and we did hear you, and we are
033working on some some really interesting things for those beginning of year and middle of year assessments, and we are excited that we're going to be able to bring those out to you all not too long from now. But other things that are going on, we've got our educator item reviews starting next week where again we will be looking at blueprints and rubrics as part of the those meetings. We have teachers on site, so we're going to be um reviewing these these other pieces as well. We're going to get to that third-party list um at the end of the summer. But some of the things that we've done, we've already put out a TAA and FAQ. Um we're we did our standalone field test this year, and we're really moving on to uh we're very close
034to being ready for 26-27 where we continue to look at look at how we're going to implement solutions and gather feedback. Um and there's some exciting things coming up in in 2026-2027 as we think about um cognitive labs and getting feedback on on things and beginning training because fall 2027 a year and a couple of months from now will be here before we know it, and fall 2027 is when that beginning of year, that first assessment will be ready to go. All right, next slide, please. And then we are out talking it's we talk to folks like y'all every day pretty much. We are talking to within our own work we have an educator advisory committee, a group of folks from across the state who meet twice yearly and give us feedback on all of
035our plans, as well as our Texas Technical Advisory Committee. That's a national group of measurement experts who convene twice yearly as well to review and give input on our plans. And thus far folks have been highly complimentary in terms of the approaches that we're taking. We work with educators, of course, both within the EIR setting, the our EAC, but we also do a lot of outreach with content area groups, TASM, Crest, T Cella, and others actually, you know, as we where wherever we're invited, the classroom teacher association, the Texas Incentive Allotment, the TIA conference, but we're also engaging with parents as we can to talk about reports and logos and what really works for them, as well as students directly with some of the cog labs we're going to do in the fall. We're really
036committed to reaching out to as many folks as we can along the way to ensure that we're we're producing the best product possible. And I think that's my last slide. >> [snorts] >> Thanks, Chris. I appreciate both you and Kevin for providing many of these updates and overview that are essential for our LEAs as we are working through the process of House Bill 8. And with that being said, I would graciously like to provide you all the information that we will be having another webinar for the upcoming school year. Specifically, it will be the first webinar that we kick off our school year with and that will be related to House Bill 8 assessment updates. Bringing our team back together again to provide you with essential and timely information that will allow you all to
037make decisions as you are planning for the next steps of this transition. And so that is going to be held on Thursday, August 27th and it's going to be 9:00 through 11:00 a.m. which is going to be a standard time, Central Standard Time for which we hold all of our webinars for the next school year. Registration is limited, however, we always offer these recordings within our LMS and we also provide the presentation material there as well. And so this recording today will be available in the LMS in the upcoming days as it is processed in order to be placed there for you all. So super excited about that upcoming webinar to provide you all an additional updates based off what we've heard from you all today and just some of the collections and every collection
038of questions that have been coming in so that we can address and support our LEAs. Another opportunity, you heard Chris say it, we are engaging in COG Lab sessions. And so this is a volunteer opportunity that is available for our LEAs and I am going to make sure that we drop that link in the chat so that it is accessible for everyone. If you have not seen it thus far in any of our communications upcoming. Um and so this is an an amazing opportunity because it gives you our LEAs and our students the opportunity to work alongside us as we gather information that is going to be used in our student success tool and also for our TELPAS assessment as we are working on that redesign as well. And so it's going to be a
039small number of students across multiple grade levels that are involved in these cognitive labs including our emergent bilingual students and this may include in-person question and answer discussions as we are working towards gathering information. Chris, I hope I did that do justice um and and got that across. Okay, great. So that is an opportunity. Please, please take the chance to fill in your interest on that cognitive lab form. >> Yeah, we really just want participation on that. We had a question what are cognitive labs and Liquida did a great job answering that but like the districts and the students who participate and help us out with this will will absolutely have a direct impact on the future of state assessments. So we want your voice to be heard. We want your kids' voices to be
040heard. So please, please um if y'all are the person to make those decisions or running up the chain to get that interest in that, please fill out that form so that we can be in contact with y'all. >> Thanks, Kevin. In addition to that, Chris highlighted multiple times in her timeline just how much we work alongside educators and bring them out and get your input regarding the development of our assessments and that transparency and work we could not do alone and so excited to announce that with these meetings there is now a $200 per day stipend that's being provided. And that is super exciting because now not only are you able to come in and support us and work alongside us, but you also get paid for it. And so that compensation is for travel,
041accommodations, and for substitute coverage considering if there is a meeting that occurs when you are supposed to be within district and supporting students. And so these are our passage review committees, item review committees, and constructive response range finding. So please, please, please, if you have not take a moment to scan the QR code on the screen or if you're listening to the playback of this recording, be sure to grab that. It also is available on our texasassessment.gov webpage as well. That link. So I'll make sure that also gets in the chat before we wrap this up. And then apologies. We're coming to the end here. And then last grab for the opportunity to get you all feedback. We have been trying our best to keep up with the Q&A questions. Obviously we're smaller today and
042so being able to get to that in the time constraints is our little difficult, but we also are wanting to gather your feedback not only on today's session, but there is the opportunity within today's survey to provide us the understanding and the feedback around what resources and supports do you all need in in your districts in order to make the transition and have all of the supports that you would need for our upcoming implementation of SST. We want to hear exactly what it is that you need and you know, we'll we'll try our best like Oprah to make things happen and and throw out what you need. Um, but we only know that if we hear it from you all. And so in this scheme and the effort of our team, we always want to
043work alongside our LEAs. And so this is your opportunity to provide that. And so in addition to the QR code on the screen, I will also be um, dropping in the chat the link for today's survey. And remember, it's not just the feedback from today, but it is also the opportunity to let us know what you need as we continue to make this transition. We also never want to leave you without knowing how to contact us and reach out. And I'm sure many of you on this call have seen this slide and information a million times in one, but it it is not remiss for us to add it for the trillionth time. Um, we are available on the uh student assessment help desk. We have an amazing team working those tickets. And so please,
044if you have any questions, follow up. In addition, please don't hesitate to reach out to our help desk. For those of you who still operate and love speaking to a live person, we still have live people working here at TEA in our student assessment division. And so there's a telephone number that you can reach us at. And then as always, our student assessment TEA webpage is available. And there are other components on that webpage that keep you updated around our legislative updates for House Bill 8 that we will be updating soon. For the purposes of the presentation material that you all received, this disclaimer will be available in the presentation deck. And we hope that this information is provided throughout LEAs and repeated as a support. And the recording does support that information clarity. And
045last but not least, thank you all for joining us. We love hosting these webinars and we hope that this information was timely and supportive of you. I am looking at the time and it is 9:38. Um, and I know our team has been looking at the Q&A. So, to be generous of everyone's time, Kevin, are there any questions that you see in the chat that you would like to raise just to honor the time that's left? >> Uh, yes, ma'am. Thank you. I was trying to keep up. I could not keep up with everybody's questions. Lots of good stuff. We will take most of this back and um, add a a lot of these questions would be on future iterations of the FAQ documents and things like that. Um, we will, yes, the this will
046be posted in the LMS. We're also uh, planning to post on our uh, new House Bill 8 website that's off of the student assessment site. So, that's coming soon along with the slides and everything. Um, other questions? Lots of TIA questions. Uh, so Chris and I are working with the teacher incentive allotment group. Um, so, similar to how STAR is now, yes, SST will be um, included on the TIA list. Um, more information, I'm not going to can't give you specifics on that just yet, but more information is coming out about that soon. But, yes, we are working with the TIA group for sure. Um, Chris, I saw you come off mute. You want to answer any of that? >> Yeah, no, well, I want to take that and morph it into something really directly
047related to design because folks, I saw in the chat as well folks asking questions about the differences between the beginning and middle of year test versus the end of year tests given that the beginning and middle of year is adaptive, the end of year will not be adaptive. We should have no problems being able to to um, link those with with growth measures as we gain that information. Remembering we need a couple of years of data before we get really solid growth measures. So, but we should have no problem doing that because every test we're producing, beginning, middle, and end of year, they are criterion reference tests. They do reference the standards. They do test the breadth and depth of the TEKS, which is what we're required to do. Um just as as part of
048uh the House Bill 8 federal accountability, all of those things. So, we are producing, however, norm referenced results on those criterion reference tests. So, I've had folks ask, and I saw one in the chat, "Is this a norm reference test for beginning and middle of year?" No, these are criterion reference tests that give norm referenced information. So, the the And those That's exactly what's required within the legislation and what is going to best uh create a system that you can compare beginning, middle, and end of year. So, I I did want to add that clarity as well. Um and also around uh item types has is is always a question. We will be putting out a list of what those item types are, but we expect mostly um multiple choice, multiple select, and maybe some
049inline choice. But not not committing to any of that until the end of the summer when we start to publish those blueprints. Back to you, Kevin, or Liquid Data. >> Yeah, no, excellent. Uh couple more minutes. Um this one talks about we would like to participate for TELPAS in secondary for the Cog Labs. Uh thank you. Uh how much time um would the students have to volunteer? Um it's it's about an hour per student where we, you know, including transition time to walk them down and, you know, get them familiar, and then they just start, you know, answering questions, and then our our folks are asking them questions while they're taking while while they're looking at items and and doing things. So, it's about an hour per student. So, I would say what what's been
050related to us is, you know, probably 20 to 30 kids per campus per day. Um, so, yeah, we just appreciate your um appreciate if y'all can help out with that. I'm looking. >> Uh, I have one Kevin really quickly. Another thing around yesterday's recording that's coming up in the in the question and answer boxes. Um, this recording will be in the LMS and the presentation material will be there. As it relates to our Q&A, we are utilizing that and we are posting it in the same way on our website that we do our other Q&A so that we can maintain consistency around the way that we streamline information. Um, that way it's public, it's transparent, and it also gives the opportunity for people to get their answers in in the one location. So, I think
051it's important to highlight that. It also is exciting to announce that in our coordinator resources where we typically post our yearly trainings on our training section page, we will be supporting and offering the information that was highlighted here around our HBA webinar that's coming up and that registration will be available there as well. When that transitions over, um, that section from this school year. So, those were two that I wanted to raise regarding training in the support that we provided today. Um, and then I did see someone ask and inquire about access for the LMS, our learning management system. [clears throat] That tile is available on our Texas Assessment Web page and I'll be sure to drop that in the chat as well. Hope hoping everyone visits um, and engage with our training availability that
052is there. >> I think we'll close with last one. Uh, Stacy just asked about additional guidance about beginning and middle year not being part of accountabilities. So, some guidance for families. Yes, we do plan to put out uh parent resources as well for the beginning of the middle of the year. Like these are quick checkpoints designed to help your teacher, help your kid. So, more information is will coming out about that as well. So, uh lots of great questions. We promise we will get a future FAQ out uh soon and then uh be ready for that next Tassian in August. So, we appreciate everybody's time. Thank you all for being here. >> Thank you all for coming. Kevin and Chris, thank you all for presenting and giving me some of your all's time to get
053the information out to the field. And thanks for taking the all of the time that was really available in order to support as many questions as you can. We appreciate you all for being here and thank you all and have a good rest [clears throat] of your day.