USBE, ACT staff outline changes to ACT accommodations, EL supports and TAA deadlines

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for our annual ACT accommodations training, my name is Jessica Wilhelm, special education assessment specialist at the Utah State Board of Education, the webinar opened, and USBE and ACT staff then walked attendees through policy and procedural changes affecting how schools request and administer ACT accommodations and English Learner (EL) supports.

The changes matter because they alter what must be submitted through ACT’s Test Accessibility and Accommodations system (TAA), how long some EL approvals remain valid, which screeners ACT will accept as proof of limited English proficiency, and the schedule for accommodation request deadlines that schools must meet to ensure students receive authorized materials for accommodated testing.

Presenters summarized several substantive policy and process changes. ACT-designated bilingual dictionaries and ACT-provided translated test directions are now designated, locally approvable supports and will not appear on the TAA request menu; local test coordinators may authorize those at the site without submitting them to ACT. The EL support of “time and one-half” (1.5×) will be valid for two years once approved; ACT staff said they will not retroactively extend past approvals that already expired. ACT will accept certain English language proficiency screening measures — specifically WIDA, ELPA21 and LAS Links screeners — as sufficient documentation of limited English proficiency in some cases.

Presenters gave a set of milestone dates and described a move to rolling accommodation deadlines. The webinar materials list TAA opening on 09/08/2025 and three event deadlines: Jan. 28, 2026 (for the March 10 testing window); Feb. 11, 2026 (for the March 24 testing window); and Feb. 25, 2026 (for an April testing window). Presenters also described a qualified-exception-to-deadline (QED) submission opportunity that the recording gave in two places as Feb. 26–April 3, 2026 and later as opening on April 3;…