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An update from Academic Standards, Instruction and Assessment
Oct. 22, 2025
Important Dates
Oct. 24: Deadline to submit late student response entry or rescore requests for spring 2025 MCA and MTAS/Alt MCA
Quick Links
All virtual events hosted by the Division of Academic Standards, Instruction and Assessment at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) or Pearson will require advanced registration. Participants must register for events 24 hours in advance using an email address associated with their school, district, or educational agency. Registrations made less than 24 hours in advance will not be approved. MDE will manually approve all registrations prior to the event. Once registrations are approved, participants will receive a confirmation email with the link to the event.
This policy applies to any virtual event hosted by the division, including District Assessment Coordinator (DAC) trainings and Q&A sessions, Alternate Assessment Chat and Connect Series, and Academic Standards professional development opportunities and office hours.
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Minnesota IT (MNIT) Services and the MDE are undergoing an initiative to move MDE systems and related databases to a secure cloud server. For statewide assessment-related systems, including Test WES, GRR, and Assessment Secure Reports, this migration is beginning this fall. A draft version of the Important Dates for Test Administration is posted to the Policies and Procedures page of the Minnesota Assessment Hub, but some dates for Test WES, including the opening of Pretest Editing and tasks following test administration, are still being determined. Pretest Editing is anticipated to open later than in past years, tentatively in December. With this later opening, some MCA and MTAS/Alt MCA dates have been updated, including the following:
- The deadline to make changes in Test WES Pretest Editing that affect the initial test materials shipment will be one week later than in past years. The information entered by this deadline is used to determine initial test materials shipment quantities, including students who need paper accommodations and students who are taking alternate assessments.
- There will be one delivery date for the initial MCA and MTAS/Alt MCA test materials shipment, rather than a choice of two delivery dates.
Future Assessment Updates will provide more information about system migration and an updated version of the Important Dates for Test Administration document.
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Districts selected for the District Policies and Procedures for Statewide Assessments audit received email notifications and will receive feedback before the start of the testing window. As a reminder, all districts are expected to have and maintain internal District Policies and Procedures for Statewide Assessments that align with requirements in the Procedures Manual. Further information on these requirements can be found in Chapter 5 and Appendix B of the Procedures Manual.
MDE highly recommends that districts use the District Policies and Procedures for Statewide Assessments template available on the Policies and Procedures page on the Minnesota Assessment Hub website. This template was updated for the 2025-26 school year with minor language clarifications, including adding references to the new Reading Alt MCA and WIDA ACCESS. Districts that use the template have been shown to be more likely to align with all the requirements for this audit.
Even if your district did not receive an email notifying you of this audit, please make sure to review the requirements listed in Appendix B and ensure your internal district policies and procedures are up to date.
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Please share this opportunity with your English language arts, special education, and multilingual learner teachers.
This spring will be the first administration of the Reading MCA-IV and Alternate MCA. All new assessments need to go through a process called “standard setting” before scores can be released. This process will take place in summer 2026 for Reading MCA and Alt MCA. During standard setting, Minnesota educators will work together to make recommendations of what students need to know and be able to do at each performance level and use the Performance Level Descriptors to determine what it means for students to demonstrate proficiency on the Reading strand of the 2020 Minnesota Academic Standards in English Language Arts. There are four performance levels for the new series of assessments: Beginning, Intermediate, Meets, and Advanced. The standard setting committees will make recommendations of the cut scores, which determine the corresponding score at each level. Watch the Overview of the Standard Setting Process for MCA and Alternate MCA video for more information.
MDE is looking for a diverse group of classroom educators representing English Language Arts education throughout the state. This committee will balance grade-level and content-area knowledge of the 2020 Minnesota English Language Arts Standards, geographic distribution, and the diversity of our student population. Participants will contribute their instructional expertise and knowledge of the standards and collaborate with peers from across Minnesota while earning Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and an honorarium.
Please encourage English language arts, special education, and multilingual learner educators in your district to apply to be part of one of these in-person committees next summer:
- Reading Alternate MCA Standard Setting held on June 16-18, 2026
- Reading MCA-IV Standard Setting held on June 22-25, 2026
Applications to participate in standard setting will be open until Jan. 16. Committee members will be chosen based on grade-level and content-area needs, as well as experience with the 2020 Minnesota Academic Standards in English Language Arts.
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Individual Student Reports (ISRs) must be provided to parents/guardians no later than Dec. 1. Note: When results are delayed due to standard setting, such as for the Science MCA-IV and Alt MCA this year, efforts should be made to provide the results to parents/guardians as close to Dec. 1 as possible, but this requirement is flexible for those assessments.
Each district decides if the paper copies of reports are distributed or if electronic versions are provided (such as through a secure parent/guardian portal). If provided electronically, the final version from WIDA AMS or PearsonAccess Next must be used, and any paper reports received must be securely disposed of if not distributing them.
Districts determine how to distribute ISRs following best practices for data privacy. Regardless of how reports are distributed, districts should consider how to provide families with information (for example, with a letter or flyer, or in discussions at conferences) about how the results are used in the context of other district and school information. More information on ISRs and their distribution is available in Chapter 11 of the Procedures Manual.
Video ISR Resources
Personalized video ISR resources for students with Reading and Mathematics MCA and MTAS scores include an overview of the assessment and the student’s performance in each subject taken, as well as their performance related to the school, district, and state averages. Personalized video ISRs for Science MCA and Science Alt MCA are not available this year; instead, a generic video explaining the process for new assessments is available for all students who took the Science MCA or Science Alt MCA. Note: These videos are intended to be a resource to support understanding of the ISR, but the ISR itself must still be provided.
Parents/guardians can access video ISR resources by scanning the QR code on the ISR with a smart device or by contacting their student’s school for a link to access the video report. Video ISR hyperlinks for each student are available to districts in a spreadsheet posted under Published Reports in PearsonAccess Next. For more information, refer to the Video ISR Resource FAQ on the Minnesota Assessment Hub website. In addition to English, video ISR resources are available in the 10 most populous non-English languages in Minnesota (Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, Hmong, Karen, Oromo, Russian, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese). To change the language, use the dropdown menu in the upper-left corner of the video ISR.
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The Guidance for Universal Supports and Accommodations for Minnesota Statewide Assessments (referred to as “Guidance” below) can be used by district and school staff who have a role in decision-making and/or test administration with universal supports and accommodations for statewide assessments. This is a companion document to Chapter 4 of the 2025-26 Procedures Manual, but is more accessible and useful for staff who are not as familiar with the Procedures Manual. While much of the information is the same between the Guidance and Chapter 4, it allows some text to be more specific to each audience (district/school staff and District Assessment Coordinators (DACs), respectively). The updated 2025-26 Guidance document is posted on the District Resources page under the Universal Supports and Accommodations Resources expandable header along with a stand-alone version of an infographic summarizing the available universal supports and accommodations for the MCAs.
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November Q&A Session: Preparing to Train Staff
MDE will host a Q&A session for new and experienced District Assessment Coordinators (DACs) from 2 to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4. This session will be hosted on ZoomGov, and advanced registration is required. Register here for November Q&A Session (1). Please note: All participants must register for the event using their email addresses associated with their school, district, or educational agency. MDE will manually approve all registrations prior to the event. Once registrations are approved, participants will receive a confirmation email with the link to the event. Registration for this event will close at 2 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 3. Registrations made after that time will not be approved.
The prerequisites for this Q&A are the following chapters from the Procedures Manual:
- Chapter 6 (Overview of Test Administration)
- Chapter 7 (Before Test Administration)
MDE collects questions from DACs prior to the event to help prepare and find relevant resources to share. After reviewing the prerequisites, submit questions for the November Q&A Session (1). Q&A sessions will not be recorded nor will CEUs be provided as they are considered additional supports rather than training events.
Implementing the Alternate Assessment Eligibility Guidelines (repeat)
Direct service providers, Individualized Education Program (IEP) team members, and administrators who support assessment planning and decision making (DACs, directors) are invited to attend a webinar with MDE Special Education and Alternate Assessment Specialists to review the current alternate assessment eligibility guideline resources and use real world examples to apply the decision-making model. Registration for this event will close at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 3. Registrations made after that time will not be approved.
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Academic Standards, Instruction and Assessment
Minnesota Department of Education
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