Assessment and Accountability

Welcome to the Assessment and Accountabilty page for the Laurel SD. This page will house important documentation and resources regarding the PSSA and Keystone assessments. Please take a moment to review the documentation listed under the “resources” section for details on the upcoming assessments.

Future Ready Index

What is the Future Ready PA Index? (FRPAI)

In looking at ways to create a more holistic school evaluation tool, the Pennsylvania Department of Education conducted dozens of feedback sessions to solicit recommendations from more than 1,000 stakeholders around a new measure.

The Future Ready PA Index will serve as Pennsylvania’s one-stop location for comprehensive information about school success and will use a dashboard model to highlight how schools are performing and making progress on multiple indicators.

The dashboard approach to school reporting:

Increases emphasis on student growth measures, which incentivizes a focus on all learners and is less sensitive to demographic variables.
Measures English language acquisition among ELL students, not simply performance on a test of grade level ELA standards.
Incentivizes career awareness instruction beginning at the elementary level.
Addresses the issue of unequal weighting of content areas in the current SPP.
Provides indicators of student success after graduation.
Increases the emphasis on student access to course offerings such as AP, IB, college credit, and CTE programs of study.
Allows LEAs to include locally-selected reading assessments (Grade 3) and math assessments (Grade 7) as additional snapshots of student progress.
Incentivizes schools to offer career pathways that culminate with high value, industry-recognized credentials.The Future Ready PA Index is a way for Pennsylvania to demonstrate the performance of students in schools across the state on standardized tests, as well as through a variety of other measures.

To access Laurel’s Future Ready PA Index record, please visit https://futurereadypa.org

For more information about the Future Ready PA Index, please visit the following website:

https://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/ESSA/FutureReady/Pages/default.aspx

Please be aware that when using the above links you will be leaving the official Laurel School District website.
The Laurel School District is not responsible for and does not author any of the information contained on the these websites. If you have concerns or questions regarding any of the content encountered please contact the respective organizations directly.

PSSA

Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA)

The annual Pennsylvania System School Assessment is a standards-based, criterion-referenced assessment which provides students, parents, educators and citizens with an understanding of student and school performance related to the attainment of proficiency of the academic standards. These standards in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science and Technology identify what a student should know and be able to do at varying grade levels. School districts possess the freedom to design curriculum and instruction to ensure that students meet or exceed the standards' expectations.

Every Pennsylvania student in grades 3 through 8 is assessed in English Language Arts and Math. Every Pennsylvania student in grades 4 and 8 is assessed in science.

Individual student scores, provided only to their respective schools, can be used to assist teachers in identifying students who may be in need of additional educational opportunities, and school scores provide information to schools and districts for curriculum and instruction improvement discussions and planning.

In compliance with §4.51(a)(4) of the PA School Code the State Board of Education approved, "specific criteria for advanced, proficient, basic and below basic levels of performance."

The spring PSSA tests will be administered to all students in grades 3-8. Please see the following testing dates on our assessment calendar.

Keystone Exams

The Keystone Exams are end-of-course assessments designed to assess proficiency in the subject areas of Algebra I, Literature and Biology. Beginning in the 2012-2013 school year, Keystone Exams in the following subjects were developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and made available for use by school districts, AVTSs and charter schools, including cyber charter schools:

Algebra I
Literature
Biology

The spring Keystone exams will be administered in both the winter and spring sessions. Please see the following testing dates on our assessment calendar.