We will begin the Colorado Measures of Academic Success [ Spanish ] (CMAS) assessments on April 8, 2024. These assessments measure students' mastery of the Colorado Academic Standards, including a demonstration of both knowledge and skills. They give our teachers critical information to ensure our students are on track for college and career readiness, and to help us understand whether our students have the necessary skills to succeed after high school. The CMAS assessments focus on three different content areas depending upon your child’s grade level:

April 8 - April 26

• English Language Arts (ELA) and Math: 3rd through 8th grade

• Science: 5th and 8th grade

April 8 - 12

• Science for 11th Grade (Windsor High School)

April 16

• SAT: 11th grade (Windsor High School and Severance High School)

• New this year: SAT tests will be taken online, so it is critical that your student has their Chromebook charged and ready for this test.

April 17

• PSAT 9 and PSAT 10 (Windsor High School and Severance High School)

• New this year: PSAT tests will be taken online, so it is critical that your student has their Chromebook charged and ready for this test.

April 23

• Science for 11th Grade (Severance High School)

Preparation

We ask that you make sure your children get plenty of sleep and a healthy breakfast every day, but especially on assessment days. In addition, if there are doctor’s appointments or other appointments that need to be made, we hope this calendar will help you to make those appointments on non-assessment days. We also ask that students charge their Chromebooks each night to ensure tests are taken without any technical challenges.

Attendance

We also want to communicate that all students should be in school on-time, all day and every day, regardless of whether assessments are occurring or not. Important teaching and learning happens in between testing, so it is imperative that students are here. Our expectations remain around vacations, and we expect parents to continue to plan vacations around the school calendar. 

Make-Ups

Students do best when they are in their classroom environment for testing. In the event that your child has to miss a test session, they will have to make up the test another time and will be pulled during their instructional time to do so. To prevent disruption to your child and other students’ days, please make sure that your child is at school and limit their absences to only when they are sick.

Opting Out

These assessments provide valuable individual student progress information, as well as school-wide academic performance data. However, there is a procedure to opt out, without penalty, of these tests. We kindly ask that you contact your child’s principal by April 5, 2024, to discuss opting out of one or all of the state assessments.

Results

Students’ individual score reports from state assessments are expected to be available in August for both students and parents. Consistent with typical years, state-level results are expected to be announced by the Colorado Department of Education at that time. As a reminder, these state assessments are just one way we measure student performance throughout the year. Students in grades K-9 also take STAR 360 benchmark assessments in reading and math throughout the year. Progress available through these benchmarks is typically shared with parents during parent-teacher conferences, or they can be obtained by connecting with your child’s teacher. 

If you have any questions or feedback, please reach out to engage@weldre4.org.