Stratham administrator outlines how New Hampshire state assessments are scored, stresses high participation and local interim testing

Jill Lizzier, the district’s Chief Officer for Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, told the Stratham School Board that the New Hampshire Statewide Assessment System exists to satisfy federal accountability requirements and that Stratham’s schools are not identified as needing additional federal support.

Lizzier said the state assessment program is the vehicle New Hampshire uses to meet the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) accountability framework and described how the state defines goals, measures achievement and reports results. “The reason we do state assessments is for the federal accountability system,” she said.

The presentation summarized which students take which tests, how the state scores results, and why interim assessments matter. Lizzier said grades 3–8 take the New Hampshire SAS English language arts (ELA) and math tests; grades 5 and 11 take science; and 11th graders take the SAT. She explained there is a 1% cap on students who may take an alternate assessment (the Dynamic Learning Maps, DLM) and that English learners take separate access tests. Lizzier said Stratham’s participation rate on required summative assessments is roughly 98–99%, above the 95% participation threshold described in federal guidance.

Why it matters: federal accountability treats nonparticipation differently than low performance. Lizzier played a Department of Education briefing that shows the federal system counts non‑participants against a school’s achievement indicator if participation drops below the 95% threshold; at Stratham that was not an issue, she said. “We didn’t fall below that 95%,” she told the board, noting that means “we have no zeros in our achievement score.”

Lizzier also described the district’s balanced assessment approach: interim measures such as i-Ready (math and ELA), Acadience (foundational reading measures) and classroom-based curriculum assessments are used throughout the year to identify students who need support long before the spring summative assessment. “We don’t have to wait until June to find out what a student knows,” she said, adding state tests are one piece of evidence in a broader assessment system.

During public comment and a question-and-answer segment, residents and board members asked how the state score translates to parent‑facing information and what happens to schools identified as needing support. Lizzier said parents and schools receive equivalent information on the state report card; the state’s public portal (the iPlatform/state report card) includes participation and performance data used for federal reporting. She described the remediation process for schools identified for extra support as a targeted improvement plan involving professional development, data tracking and goal-setting, and said the state monitors progress until exit criteria are met.

Lizzier also described who creates and scores the tests. The state contracts with a vendor (Cambium) to develop the assessments, she said, and test items and scoring rules are aligned to state standards. Scaled scores place students into level 1–4 performance bands; level 4 indicates performance above grade level. Lizzier said the writing tasks are one‑time prompts and may not mirror the classroom writing process, so the district supplements state data with local measures.

Lizzier agreed to share the Department of Education video and her slides with the board and have the presentation included with the meeting minutes.

Ending: The board heard the presentation as part of its regular meeting; Lizzier’s materials and the referenced Department of Education video will be posted with the minutes for parents and board members who want the full briefing.