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EduTech and NDDPI will host ND A+ Summative Assessment Preparedness Workshops in March 2026. These workshops are designed to help educators prepare for the upcoming ND A+ Summative Assessment.
Workshop Format:
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In-person, regional workshops at six locations across the state.
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Virtual workshop option for added flexibility.
- Each date/location offers two sessions: a morning and an afternoon workshop. Both sessions cover the same content, so participants only need to attend one.
Dates & Locations:
- Monday, March 2, 2026 – Grand Forks
- Tuesday, March 3, 2026 – Devils Lake
- Wednesday, March 4, 2026 – Minot
- Thursday, March 5, 2026 – Bismarck
- Monday, March 9, 2026 – Jamestown
- Tuesday, March 10, 2026 – Fargo
- Thursday, March 12, 2026 – Virtual Webinar
Test Administration Manual
The ND A+ Summative Assessment Test Administration Manual has been updated for the 2025-2026 school year and is now available on the ND A+ Portal > Administration Resources tab > Summative Resources > User Guides.
This manual provides comprehensive guidance for administering the ND A+ Summative Assessment, including detailed instructions for activities before, during, and after test administration. It also outlines essential testing policies and protocols related to test security and proper administration procedures that all school and district personnel must follow.
Please review the updated manual carefully to ensure compliance and a smooth testing experience.
Annual Proctor Certification
Beginning March 2, 2026, staff can complete the annual proctor certification process through Pearson's Learning Management System (LMS), accessible via the ND A+ Portal > Administration Resources tab > Proctor Certification. Additional information about the certification process is included in the ND A+ Summative Assessment Test Administration Manual. The updated process is designed to provide a more streamlined certification experience for all staff involved in the ND A+ Summative Assessment.
Who Needs to Complete Training?
All staff members who administer the ND A+ Summative Assessment must complete annual training on test security and administration procedures. This training is provided by Pearson and NDDPI, with optional local supplements from your school or district to support consistent, high-quality test administration and an optimal testing experience for students.
Certification Tracking and Reporting
Pearson will extract proctor certification completion data from the LMS every Friday from March 6, 2026, through May 8, 2026. District-level completion files will be uploaded to ADAM under Reporting > Report Assets, where District Administrators can access and review them.
A one-time upload of student testing accommodations for the ND A+ Summative Assessment will be completed by NDDPI in late February 2026. Approved accommodations noted in the last finalized IEP and documented in TIENET will be pulled and uploaded into ADAM, the assessment management platform.
After this initial upload, schools and districts are responsible for updating, adding, or editing student accommodations and designated supports directly in ADAM. Instructions for manually updating accessibility supports can be found in the ND A+ Summative Assessment Test Administration Manual, located on the ND A+ Portal under Administration Resources > Summative Resources > User Guides.
Important:
The determined assessment listed in the last finalized IEP on Jan. 15, 2026, will be the assessment used for accountability purposes for the student.
Accommodations Management in ADAM
NDDPI completes two separate one-time uploads each school year:
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Interim Assessments – completed for the 2025–2026 school year on Aug. 29, 2025, prior to the fall testing window opening on Sept. 2, 2025.
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Summative Assessment – planned for late February 2026 (likely the week of Feb. 23, 2026).
Each upload pulls accommodations documented in TIENET and populates the appropriate accommodations profile in ADAM:
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Interim profile – first two columns in a student’s Accommodations > Edit screen.
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Summative profile – last four columns in a student’s Accommodations > Edit screen.
Important: These profiles are separate and independent. Changes made in one profile do not automatically carry over to the other.
- Updates to ND A+ Interim Assessment accessibility supports must be made in the interim profile. If accommodations are set manually in the interim profile in ADAM after the state upload, they will remain in place and apply to all remaining interim administrations for that school year—provided a district upload is not completed.
- Updates to ND A+ Summative Assessment accessibility supports must be made in the summative profile.
NDDPI has partnered with Pearson to launch the North Dakota Family Portal, a new resource designed to help parents and guardians support their students’ educational progress and learning by providing direct access to ND A+ Summative Assessment results.
The Family Portal is secure and will be accessible through a user-friendly browser link, compatible with laptops, tablets, and smartphones. To protect student privacy and ensure data security, families will log in using student-specific credentials such as student ID, name, and date of birth.
What Families Will See
For students who participate in the ND A+ Summative Assessment, the Family Portal will include access to:
- Individual Student Report (ISR)
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Video Individual Student Report (Video ISR) – featuring student-specific animation and voiceovers that guide families through student results step by step
Additional resources will be available to help families interpret and understand assessment results.
When Will It Be Available?
Beginning in late June, families will be able to access the Family Portal to view both the printable ISR and the Video ISR for their student.
Stay tuned—more details will be shared soon. We are committed to enhancing our partnership with families by providing meaningful, easy-to-understand information about student achievement as measured by the ND A+ assessment system. Together, we can support every student’s success.
ND Educator Featured in Navvy’s National Community Forum
North Dakota’s own Katie Oster, representing the Northeast Education Services Cooperative (NESC), was featured on Navvy’s February Community Forum! During her segment, Katie shared insights on:
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How schools in her region use Navvy to prepare for the ND A+ Summative Assessment and support instructional rigor
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How Navvy is embedded within standards-based learning efforts in her region
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Key learnings from educators who have piloted Navvy implementations
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The infusion of Navvy in MTSS practices and common formative assessment scheduling
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Where educators have found value in Navvy’s Learning Library resources
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Student data and celebration rituals grounded in Navvy—“Where’s the poster?!”
🎥 You can view Katie’s segment of the forum here.
All North Dakota educators are invited to join Navvy’s monthly national Community Forums—you can register to attend here.
Additionally, the Navvy team is always looking to feature North Dakota educators! If you’re interested in sharing your Navvy story and being highlighted in a future Community Forum, please reach out to Amanda.Drahn@pearson.com.
All Student Results Report + Export
The All Student Results report and export is now available in Navvy! With this report, educators can:
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Filter across ALL assessment activity they are permissioned to view
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See a side-by-side summary of student performance
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Export results to CSV format, with up to 10,000 rows of data at a time
This report enables educators to apply granular filters to student results, empowering teams to view, analyze, and act upon learning data in ways that best meet local needs.
Filtering options by role:
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District Admin users: School, Teacher, Class, Check Type, and Date Range
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Site Admin/School Coordinator users: Teacher, Class, Check Type, and Date Range
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Teacher users: Class, Check Type, and Date Range
Join Us for Office Hours:
Want to learn more? Join us for ND A+ Office Hours on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, from 3–4 p.m. CT. This session will include an overview of the All Student Results report and export in Navvy, along with time for questions and discussion.
🔗 Click here to join us!
You asked, and we listened! Many of you shared that having access to ND A+ Office Hours recordings would be helpful, and we’re excited to deliver. The ND A+ Portal now features an Office Hours Recordings Catalog, available under Administration Resources > Training.
This catalog is your one-stop spot for past session recordings and supporting resources. Whether you’re catching up on a session you missed or revisiting a topic, finding what you need is quick and easy—on your schedule.
👉 Click here to explore the catalog and catch up anytime.
Did you know...that the scoring for the ND A+ Interim Assessments and ND A+ Summative Assessment is much more than just a simple percent correct?
Many ND A+ assessments use a computer adaptive test (CAT) design. In a CAT design, students do not all receive the same questions in the assessment. Because each student sees items of varying difficulty, percent correct alone would not accurately reflect performance since it doesn’t account for the difficulty of the items each student sees.
Item selection is determined by the test blueprint (e.g., content coverage requirements) and by how students respond to each item.
- As students correctly answer items, they will see increasingly more difficult items. If students incorrectly answer items, items will become less difficult
- Example: ND A+ Interim Assessments in grades 3-8
Other ND A+ assessments use a linear test design. In a linear test, all students receive a pre-determined set of items. Item selection does not adapt based on how students respond to each item. Item selection is fixed according to the test blueprint (e.g., content coverage requirements), and overall item/test form difficulty is comparable across students.
- Example: ND A+ Interim Assessments in grades K-2
How Are These Assessments Scored?
Rather than relying on percent correct, scoring for the ND A+ assessments is based on Item Response Theory (IRT). Here’s how it works:
- Every item in the assessment bank has parameters describing its difficulty on a theta scale, which typically ranges from negative to positive values (for example, -4 to +4).
- Negative values indicate easier items.
- Positive values indicate harder ones.
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Item pattern scoring considers both which items a student received and how they performed on them. As students respond to items, their pattern of correct and incorrect responses, combined with the difficulty of the items they encountered, is used to estimate an ability score, called a theta score (θ). This score represents a latent trait, or a student’s underlying theoretical ability in a given content area.
- For linear tests, item pattern scoring only incorporates the pattern of how a student responds to an item (i.e., answered correctly or incorrectly) since students who receive the same linear test form will receive the same items. In this case, while scoring is still calculated using the theta score metric, each theta score corresponds to a single raw score, which could then be converted to a percent correct for fixed-length assessments.
- The theta score is then transformed through a process called scaling, which gives the score meaning for reporting purposes. Scaling is a process that applies a mathematical transformation—often involving a slope and intercept, along with other design factors—that converts a theta (ability) score into a, for example, reported scale score and an associated performance level.
Putting It All Together
Think of it like a fitness test: running a mile in 8 minutes demonstrates greater fitness than walking a mile in 12 minutes. Similarly, answering more challenging questions correctly demonstrates greater ability than answering only easier ones.
In short, behind the scenes, psychometric methods ensure that assessment scores are fair, accurate, and meaningful—reflecting not just what students answered correctly, but the rigor of the items they encountered.
Want to better understand the ND A+ (North Dakota Academic Progression of Learning and Understanding of Students) assessment system? A variety of helpful tools and resources are available to support your learning and implementation.
🔹 ND A+ Overview Video Get a quick introduction to the assessment system with a short video available on the ND A+ Portal.
🔹 ND A+ Blueprints Developed with input from North Dakota educators, these blueprints outline:
- The state standards assessed
- Reporting categories
- Distribution of items by reporting category and score points. They guide the design of both ND A+ Summative and ND A+ Interim assessments.
📍 Find them under the Administration Resources tab > Summative Resources on the ND A+ Portal.
🔹 Achievement Level Descriptors (ALDs) Also created with educator collaboration, ALDs describe what students at each achievement level are expected to know and do, based on North Dakota Content Standards.
📍 Available under Administration Resources > Summative Resources on the ND A+ Portal.
📌 Visit the ND A+ Portal to explore these and other helpful resources.
Monthly assessment newsletters are now conveniently stored in one central location: https://www.nd.gov/dpi/newsletters, under the Assessment Newsletter tab.
Starting with the 2025–2026 school year, newsletters will be available only for the current school year. This fresh-start approach helps keep content timely and relevant.
Be sure to check back regularly so you don’t miss any important updates!
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