Your monthly update on all things assessment

Endings and New Beginnings

As a former teacher, I vividly remember how much I anticipated the end of May. It was always time to catch my breath professionally and reflect on the year we just completed. We could all use a moment to reflect after the past two years of teaching through and living with COVID-19. Hopefully, we can all look forward to more normal times in the years to come.

Normal for our work here on the assessment team at the RCU will look different after this year. As I have previously informed you here in the Assessment Minute, the MS-CPAS tests will be retired after this testing season. The testing system will be replaced by an online monitoring rubric designed by our staff the last two years to measure career and technical education program quality.

We are aware many of you who are not currently involved in our pilot for this program are curious about how the system will work for the 2022-2023 school year. Our team will be presenting and training on both the rubric and the online system this year at the Mississippi Association for Career and Technical Education (MS ACTE) conference in Biloxi on July 25-27. Be sure to register for MS ACTE as soon as possible. If your district is unable to attend MS ACTE and needs training on the online system, please send a request to [email protected] so we can schedule a training for you.

Thanks,

Ben Alexander

Assessment Manager 

If your CTE center has a new director or 

test coordinator for the 2021-2022 school year, please 

let us know by submitting a Help Desk ticket with the

name and contact information of this new hire.

Important Dates

To view a full calendar, visit the MS-CPAS resources page and log in to the RCU website.

MS-CPAS

2022 MS-CPAS testing is now in the books! MS-CPAS reports will be published by 5 p.m. on May 13. An explanation of each report can be found in the MS-CPAS Interpretive Guide. Three of the reports that could be helpful to teachers include:

·       MS-CPAS Class Report: This report contains the class average for each unit and can be used to inform instructional practices.

·       MS-CPAS Student Report: This report provides details about each student’s achievement on an assessment.

·       MS-CPAS State Overview Report: This report contains the state’s average score for each unit and allows instructors to compare their students’ unit scores with the statewide average.

When reports are published on May 13, you can find them on the RCU website by navigating to Assessment > Reports > Secondary MS-CPAS (Spring 2018-present). Reports can only be accessed by district account holders. Please download and share these reports with your teachers.

National Certifications

National Certification testing will close May 13 at 5 p.m. Official certification reports will be available mid-summer. Look for an update on the release of these reports in the June Assessment Minute.  

ASE:

ASE retest must occur 30 days after the original test is taken. Please plan accordingly for this so retests will occur within the certification testing window.

Certiport:

ACU and ESB retest vouchers from Certiport are placed directly into students’ accounts 24 hours after a student has failed. Test coordinators will not have access to the retest vouchers. Test coordinators need to have students retrieve these vouchers when they are seated to retest.

NCCER:

More NCCER proctor training will occur at MS ACTE. Be on the lookout to sign up for these trainings later in the semester.

Access to assign module testing is now only allowed by the test coordinator. Please remind your NCCER instructors of this change. Module testing can occur throughout the rest of the year, and the instructor is still allowed to give the module tests. The instructor is not allowed to be involved in end-of-year testing. NCCER end-of-year tests have been loaded for all centers that have uploaded their students into their end-of-year groups. If you have not loaded your students into the end-of-year groups, please do so ASAP and send a Help Desk ticket to let us know that this step has been completed.  

NCCER retests have a mandatory two-day waiting period. To request a retake, contact the RCU through Help Desk and include the student’s name, score, course and NCCER ID number.

ServSafe:

Once you complete your ServSafe testing, you must submit the ServSafe Score Import Template and a screenshot of your ServSafe report to the RCU Help Desk for your scores to be included in accountability reporting. This template can be found by navigating to Reports > Testing Tools.

As always, if you have a question or need assistance, reach out to us by sending a Help Desk ticket or by calling 662.325.2510. 

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