Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the State Testing Nextera topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Ossining schools complete ELA testing despite statewide Nextera outages; district to continue math and science CB tests
Summary
Ossining Union Free School District officials said students completed English language arts testing this week after partial interruptions tied to the vendor Nextera. The district said limited disruptions were resolved locally and families were notified; statewide delays prompted the state to extend testing windows.
Superintendent Mary Fox Alder said the district completed English language arts (ELA) exams this week after a vendor platform used statewide experienced outages.
The district’s assistant superintendent for instruction, Maria Angelica Mayer, told the board that the Nextera testing platform had an initial “shortage” that affected other districts and caused interruptions in some sessions here. “Today we had Claremont day 2 and AMD’s day 1. We did, we were impacted by the shortage,” Mayer said, adding that with a short delay staff implemented the assessment and students completed it. She said makeups are available for students who missed sessions.
The testing window was extended statewide after the vendor problems: Mayer said the state lengthened the ELA administration window by one week, moving the administration deadline into early May and a scoring deadline to late May. Superintendent Fox Alder and Mayer said the district has notified families and is advocating with the state on platform reliability. Fox Alder thanked the district’s technology staff, specifically naming Mike Hanna and his team, for supporting a calm testing environment while staff staggered administration to finish exams.
Nut graf: The district reported that local interruptions were resolved without canceling schoolwide ELA testing, but officials described the vendor failures as significant statewide. The state has extended deadlines; Ossining officials said they will continue with upcoming computer-based math and fifth- and eighth-grade science testing as scheduled.
District staff outlined the near-term testing schedule. Mayer said the district completed parts of the ELA window and will administer an oral language component for English language learners off-computer, followed by computer-based math in May and computer-based fifth- and eighth-grade science later in the spring. She said three in-district incidents included computers shutting off for brief periods; when machines were restarted students returned to the point where they had left off and were able to submit tests.
Board members asked whether students lost completed work and Mayer said makeups exist and that, in some other districts, students had lost long portions of work. Fox Alder and Mayer emphasized communication with families and the district’s technology team’s role in minimizing disruption.
Ending: The district asked families to monitor communications for makeup dates and said it will update the board after the next scheduled test sessions.
