Assessment
Alaska's Summative Assessments
Assessment serves as a tool to gauge students' knowledge and capabilities. Alaska's assessment system evaluates a student's proficiency in specific areas or subjects in alignment with the state's educational standards. It plays a crucial role in delivering a high-quality education to every student consistently.
Statewide assessments offer a comprehensive view of students' performance across Alaska in grades 3 through 10, providing valuable insights for families, teachers, administrators, and community leaders. The data obtained from assessments guides decisions on policies, curriculum choices, professional development for educators, instructional strategies, and recommendations for parental support.
For more information about Alaska's required statewide assessments, continue reading below or visit the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development's website.
Please contact your school principal for more information on any assessments mandated by the state or district or to opt out of any assessment.
AK STAR
The Alaska System of Academic Readiness is Alaska’s innovative assessment system. The AK STAR System connects MAP Growth interim assessments with the end-of-the-year AK STAR summative assessment for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics for students in grades 3 through 9. The AK STAR spring summative assessment’s adaptive design will give each student a unique testing experience that produces both a RIT growth score and a proficiency score.
The AK STAR assessment window for VCS students in grades 3-9 is scheduled for April 2025.
Alaska Science Assessment
The Alaska Science Assessment is a summative assessment designed to measure a student’s knowledge of the K-12 Science Standards for Alaska, adopted in June 2019. The K-12 Science Standards for Alaska provide a new foundation for defining what students should know and be able to do in terms of scientific knowledge and skills.
The K-12 Science Standards for Alaska support learning and understanding through sense making and investigations associated with scientific phenomena in life science, physical science, earth and space science, and engineering and technology. Crosscutting concepts, an organizational framework for connecting knowledge from the diverse science disciplines into a coherent and scientifically based view of the world, are included in the standards. Science and engineering practices, Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools, and evidence-based reasoning are also included.
The Alaska Science Assessment window for VCS Students in grades 5, 8, and 10 is scheduled for April 2025.
Family Resources
The Alaska Reads Act and mCLASS Assessment
The Alaska Reads Act was signed into law in June 2022 and created four new programs to support early literacy, including the District Reading Intervention Program. The goal is to assist students in achieving reading proficiency at or above grade level by the end of third grade.
As part of the District Reading Intervention Program, beginning in the 2023-24 school year, the Valdez City School District is required to offer intensive reading intervention services to students in K-3 who show a reading deficiency. As part of the state requirements, K-3 students will be assessed with a literacy screener three times per year to determine areas of proficiency (DIBELS mCLASS). Students who are identified as being below proficient will receive an individualized reading intervention plan (IRIP). Students who have an IRIP will receive additional reading instruction outside of core instruction time.
Alaska Reads Act Resources for Families
Alaska Developmental Profile
The Alaska Developmental Profile identifies, records, and summarizes the skills and behaviors students demonstrate upon entry to school, based on teacher observations.
Student skills and behaviors are defined by whether students are consistently demonstrating 13 goals and indicators in the following five domains from Alaska’s Early Learning Guidelines:
- Physical Well-Being, Health, and Motor Development
- Social and Emotional Development
- Approaches to Learning
- Cognition and General Knowledge
- Communication, Language, and Literacy