September 9, 2015
TO:
Chief School Administrators
Charter School and Renaissance School Project Lead Persons
FROM:
Jeffrey B. Hauger, Ed.D., Director
Office of Assessments
Division of Data, Research, Evaluation and Reporting
SUBJECT:
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) High School
Fall Block Administration
This memo provides districts with an update and schedule for the Partnership for Assessments of
Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) High School Fall Block administration.
All high school students who are currently enrolled in a high school Fall Block math course,
(Algebra I, Geometry, or Algebra II) or a ninth-grade, tenth-grade, or eleventh-grade English language
arts course, will need to be administered the associated PARCC assessment. A Fall Block course is
defined as one that started at the beginning of the academic year and completes instruction after the end
of the fall semester. The PARCC Fall Block test administration has two required components: the
Performance-Based Assessment (PBA) component and the End-of-Year (EOY) component. (Note, the
design changes to the PARCC assessment that created a one component assessment will not begin until
the Spring 2016 administration). For the Fall Block, the number of units and unit times per assessment
will be the same as last school year’s PARCC assessments. The two 20-day test administration
windows for the Fall Block are as follows:
•
•
PBA - November 9, 2015 through December 11, 2015
EOY - January 4, 2016 through January 29, 2016
The Department of Education (DOE) will complete state-level activities to prepare for the Fall
Block test administration by September 15, 2015. After the DOE completes these activities, districts
will be able to upload their student registration files directly to Pearson beginning September 16, 2015
through October 2, 2015. The Fall Block is different than the Spring 2015 and Spring 2016
administrations because districts must upload their Fall Block student data files directly to Pearson
and NOT through NJSMART. If you have any issues with your student registration file upload, you
need to contact the Pearson helpline directly at (888) 493-9888 or parcc@support.pearson.com. Districts
SHOULD NOT contact NJSMART directly regarding the PARCC Fall Block student registration
upload process. Please review the attached document for key deadlines for Fall Block activities.
The PARCC assessment is a computer-based assessment and the majority of students should be
administered the assessment on the computer. In limited circumstances, students will not be able to be
administered the assessment via the computer and will need to take the assessment using paper and
pencil. The DOE will review the student registration uploads and may call districts to verify the
accuracy of the student counts or delivery mode if any anomalies are detected.
As the school year begins, district personnel may have changed and the district test coordinator
and technology coordinator should review the individuals who have access to PearsonAccessnext and
determine if any changes or modifications are needed to these individual permissions. In addition, some
individuals may need to be deleted from PearsonAccessnext including individuals who are no longer
working at the school or district, as well as individuals whose positions have changed and should no
longer have access. As you may recall, users within PearsonAccessnext will receive email updates so it
is very important to keep the users list updated. Attached is a document that can be used to modify,
add, or delete users in PearsonAccessnext .
Information regarding the Spring 2016 PARCC administration will be provided soon.
For questions regarding the High School Fall Block administration, please check
www.parcc.pearson.com for updates or contact Veronica Orsi, PARCC high school coordinator, at 609292-8739 or veronica.orsi@doe.state.nj.us.
JBH/memo:9/8/15parcchsfallblockadministration
Attachments
c:
Members, State Board of Education
Commissioner David C. Hespe
Senior Staff
Harry Lee
Peggy McDonald
Lori Ramella
Veronica Orsi
Executive County Superintendents
Executive Directors for Regional Achievement Centers
Executive County Business Official
County Test Coordinators
District Test Coordinators
Bilingual /ESL Coordinators
Directors of Approved Private Schools for the Disabled
Directors of College-Operated Programs
Directors of a State Facility
NJ LEE Group
Garden State Coalition of Schools