 On that right now. Okay. And then I'll go ahead and share my screen. So, okay, so thanks everybody for joining us today. Um, I'm Steph Wannick from ESU 8 and Hello, I'm Tina Souser and I'm from ESU 8, although I'm not there today. So I'm joining you for the floor. That's why we love Zoom. We don't have to be here in the office to get to everybody. So Today we're going to talk about proctoring assessments and I think that that's a hot topic for this time of year, as many of you are about to help and Give state assessments and other we're going to really focus on state assessments, but a lot of these practices carry through to, you know, Ben, I'm thinking about you giving the Terra Nova test and things like that. So On, you know, hopefully we have some valuable information for that. I know it's kind of a stressful time of year in schools when we start to think about assessments, but Hey, if we could just have each of you kind of shout out what school you're from and introduce yourself. That'd be awesome. Ben Scholes, St. Joseph elementary and acting some Yep, Larsen. I don't know how to get mine up here. Someone stuck in there. This is Michelle Johnson at Grant elementary Great. I have three other colleagues here with me. Super. Thanks, Michelle. Becky Riai from Boyd County and there's going to be some other ones popping in. Awesome. Okay, guys. Well, um, we would we welcome your questions and feedback as we go on today. So please be ready to unmute and just jump in with any questions that you may have. Like we said, you know, we're Stefan Tina here and you know, happy to work with you Paris each month. We're so excited to see each of you. So Contact us anytime with any kind of questions. So the first thing we're going to talk about is in SCAS. So in SCAS stands for Nebraska student centered assessment system. And that's a new acronym. We used to call our state test, NISA. And so this is this is a new system that we have developed for about the last two years. And this whole system has a variety of different kinds of assessments. First, we have formative assessments. When we talk about formative, they're like the little tests in between big tests, you know, the little ways of measuring progress for our kids. So some of the things that you might see being done in your schools or things like progress monitoring or reading checkouts. You might see dibbles tests, which are changing their name to a cadence test whiz or just other classroom assessments that are going on all the time. And then we have norm reference tests. Those are the ones that kind of Compare kids to other kids in the nation. So map growth tests that kids maybe take at the beginning of the year and the end of the year or beginning and middle that kind of thing. Or Terra Nova tests right then your school gives Terra Nova. Is that right. Yes. Yeah. Okay. And ACP tests for our high school kids. Those are all norm reference tests where they are compared with kids across the country. And then we have criterion reference tests, which The scores are based on a set of knowledge. So in in the NCAS instance, the scores are based on their knowledge of the Nebraska state standards in English language arts math and science. So those are the NCAS map summative tests given every, you know, late March throughout April. So what tests make up in SCAS. Again, we have that map growth. It can be taken up to three times a year and schools get to decide how often they give their map tests. Some schools give it two times a year, some one time a year, some three times a year. But there's there's the availability to have a fall, a winter and a spring test for map growth. For map summative again that's that NCAS tests in the spring and grades three through eight take ELA in math. Grades five and eight take science and then 11th grade takes ACT and that is reading English math science and writing. So that's a lot. That's a big day for those 11th graders, isn't it. I remember getting up really early to take that test when I was a junior That was a high stakes high stress time. I remember that. Yes. And now see the high stakes and high stress usually spills right on over to the school staff. As much as we don't think testing should be Hi guys, how are you. Can you hear us. We can hear you. Yeah. Yeah, let's see. Hold on. New to us and turn them up. We want you to talk though. Yeah. So with all of these testing tests that we take there needs to be some security measures. On You know, they're, they're just our certain things we have to pay attention to and keep real secure on so that we stay really legal for the tests to that there are just a lot of regulations around a state test. So let's talk a little bit about that. First of all, the reasons for these security measures are equity of opportunity. If we went out saying all the questions that we saw on a test and and spill in our beans about it all. And I'm telling, you know, families and other kids what we saw on the test that just wouldn't be very fair. Right. We need to keep Keep everything really standardized to in our procedures where, hey, if one kid has the directions read to them. Every kid has the directions read to them. And we read those directions word for word because that's what's fair. We're going to really be have the same procedures for every single kid. And then, yeah, it's just fair to fair to kids that way, you know, we might say, well, geez, you should have known how to do this test, but We don't know the kind of morning they had or that, you know, if they remember from last year. So we we do this out of fairness to kids. Okay, so there are a lot of don'ts with this the This the Security, I feel pretty negative and going over all these don'ts, but I guess that's what goes with regulations. Right. Um, so, um, one of the things is don't discuss share or otherwise reveal the contents of the test to anyone. Kind of those rules of what happens in the test stays in the test. Right. Um, so, you know, I remember being a classroom teacher walking around while my kids took the test. I couldn't write down anything I was seeing maybe to help me teach. Or to know what was on the test. I couldn't go outside my school or my classroom door after the tests and said, you know, did you see that question or something like that. We just, we can't talk about it and it's just, we can't share anything about that test. It has to be kept under wraps. We also cannot keep copy reproduce examine or use any test item or specific test content. So again, you know, don't keep anything about from it. Don't, don't talk about it as we leave the room and don't write it down. Don't write it down. Yeah, you know, I'm telling you, I was tempted. I was like, I'd like to write some notes down so that I could use those to guide my instruction, but that's not allowed. Um, Leave and we also don't leave students unattended with testing materials. Right. We have to keep a watch of students and that's really our role in giving a test is that we're going to make sure and it's our responsibility in our school has to sign off that we will be very honest about that. So we just can't leave kids alone with those testing materials because, you know, something might happen. We wouldn't want a cheating or something like that to go on. Any questions so far. Just pipe in if you have something. Okay, more don'ts. I don't receive the test materials prior to the morning of testing. Now, most of you, if you proctor assessments, they're probably going to be on the computer. So there aren't a lot of test materials around This would really be important if you were giving a paper pencil test. So a lot of you Paris work with special ed kids and kids who might have the accommodation to use a paper pencil test. And so, you know, if it's the end of the day and you know you have to test somebody tomorrow, you couldn't go get the test booklet and have it all ready to go. You need to wait until the morning of because typically your principal might lock up those tests or something like that overnight. So it's important to just get them the day of Also, don't allow students to leave the testing site with any testing materials, including scratch paper. Okay, so we wouldn't want it to accidentally get put away in somebody's folder book bag or Have them take that scratch paper because the scratch paper could give a lot of way about the kind of questions being asked. Also, we don't allow students to look at any section of the test, except the one currently being completed. So if a student's working on the reading section, right. And they're answering questions about reading passages, we don't like let them flip to math say and start working on that. And this is really again important in that paper pencil test on the computer ice test, they wouldn't be able to flip ahead, but they just need to look at the section that they're working on at that time. Also, we can't coach or provide feedback in any way, which includes answering any questions relating to the contents of the test before, during or after the test. Now I should probably take a highlighter right now and highlight this question. How many of you would agree that this is really hard. I do. If you're sitting there one on one giving a kid a test right and they say well what's that mean. Okay, can we say anything. What's the best answer anybody have a canned response that they give to kids. To use your best judgment. Yep, use your best judgment. Sounded out. Sounded out. Try to figure it out. I can't help you with that. Just do your best. Right. I think that lies the problem. It just really super is not being mean. It is just really trying to get that true picture of that students learning. And, you know, so it's a hard one, but we have to hold true to this. We can't give them any feedback we if they say what's that word mean I think that's a classic for kids. And especially like on the reading passage, we cannot tell them what a word means, you know, we can't tell them what a word means anyway. There there are some areas where we could tell them a word, but we cannot say what that word means. So we have to be really careful. That's kind of counter productive to what your job usually entails because you're always there and our best our best intentions are always to help the kids. But I think especially when I was giving tests to kids when they came to a question like oh I know they know that they should know that. But this is what Stephanie said. It's just it's supposed to be a snapshot of what they they know at the time and it goes against every principle of us helping the kids, but at this moment we just can't. And even when they're saying here don't give them feedback to before during or after the test. So after the test we don't want to go to them and say oh you really struggled on those ones about simple machines, you know, just just leave it there, you know, and it's kind of like we're in the room to do certain things but commenting on it is not one of them. Also we don't want to alter influence or interfere with a test response in any way or instruct another individual to do so. So say you're allowed to be ascribed for a kid or you're allowed to help them click the computer. You wouldn't want to say now are you sure about that answer. Are you sure you don't want to check another answer. You know that would be leading them to let them know that that question was Mark wrong so. And we have to be really careful and just really kind of put our personality to the side and any kind of aid to the kids to the side, we're just there to get that test taken and you know we can't lead them to an answer. Can anybody think of another instance that that might be really hard. Okay, we're going to keep going. I think it vocabulary is way above their level. That's when it's really hard and you can't explain what the question means. Yep, I think I think it's really hard. You feel bad for the kid right during it. Especially I mean if a kid has a proctor for you're somebody helping on give them the test maybe reading items to him. You're there because they struggle right but we just have to be really careful about that actually legally the school could get in trouble because of it so I'm sure none of you want that. And, you know, and just we just need to be really honest with this so also we don't allow students to move to alternate testing sites for time unasked or day or carry their own secure testing materials to a new testing location. So, let's say you're you're testing in the library with a student and a class is coming in you're going to have to move. You would want to carry any testing booklets or materials with you, including any scratch paper and things like that. And you would want to go with that student to the new location to make sure that everything kept very honest. And also you want to return any test booklet or answer sheet. You wouldn't want to return them to a student after the test has been completed. So test booklets answer sheets scratch paper all that they come to to school officials. They don't go back to the kids. How many of you have had to give a paper pencil test for NSCAS. Do most of you give the computer. Test anybody have to give I'm kind of trying to look through. Yeah, I think mostly we give computer tests around here. Okay, any other questions about some of that security and those regulations. Okay, next we'll talk about the testing environment or the room that you're testing in. First, we want to provide a testing location that has comfortable seating, sufficient workspace and good lighting. Right, that's a do right. We want all those things. I used to love to give a NISA test, which is a lot like NSCAS right in my own classroom because my kids felt comfortable. We were used to the temperature and it just was a good place to work. But oftentimes if you have to take a student and maybe read aloud and that kind of thing. You're going to want to make sure that that space does have that good lighting, that good environment, not just like find a little closet down the hall kind of situation where maybe they would be uncomfortable in that environment. Lots of times it's good for the kids who have seen the environment before too so if you're taking them to some room that they don't ever go into you might want to familiarize them with that like the day before or something. Also we do want to seat students so that they have enough room and will not be tempted to copy in other students answers. I know with my students I used to put up privacy spots or file folders that I made that would go around their desk and we'd kind of move desks around the room because they get nervous for these tests too and it's easy to look on that screen next to you. So maybe you're you're pulling two students to a quiet place to do their tests and they might be near each other we want to make sure they can't see those screens or materials from someone else including scratch paper. We do want to remove or cover visual aids and clues throughout the administration of all tests. So in my classroom I had like posters up for math or for reading and I would just get a piece of you know the bulletin board paper and I would cover those up for a day or two. So you probably need to make sure no matter what room you're pulling a student to to test that those things are not on the walls as well. Has anybody ever had an experience with that had to cover something in a classroom. Just be sure of any information that they might get would be covered up one time. My school was having a visit from NDE making sure that we were following procedures and I actually asked the lady if I had to cover up my alphabet. And my number line and I think the answer at the time was no now I'm not saying that that has changed but I didn't have to go all the way across the number line and the alphabet at that time. Again I would check with your assessment contact at your school about that. Also posted do not disturb sign on the door so that people know not to interrupt seems kind of obvious but especially testing time in a building but it's nice not to interrupt your students train of thought. Also do control the access to cell phones and other personal electronic devices. Really the kids should not have a cell phone in their pocket or anything at the time of a test if you have those older kids that have those devices. Maybe just ask them to set them aside and make sure that they're put on silent. It's just really distracting even if it started to go off and vibrate and they they just might lose their concentration. Also I mean a big part of that is that you don't want kids you know cheating on the phone. So you wouldn't even want to have that around them to prove that that kid did not look something up. We do want to be positive and help students feel comfortable. If you're going to test a kid that has never worked with you before you probably want to go get to know him a little bit. Maybe see him in the lunch room or see him in another time have a conversation together. Every now and then we get a student right before testing time and we do have to test them. It's maybe a new student has moved in and you just want to make sure that you get to know them. They know you they feel comfortable. We do want to prohibit talking during the testing process. So if they start to chat with you say we can talk later like right now let's take our test. And of course we don't want students talking to each other if there are two students around. We need to provide adequate supervision throughout the testing process. So that wouldn't be a time that we could run to the restroom or take a phone call. We need to be pretty present with them the whole time. And if you're monitoring a whole class you'd want to move around the room to monitor those students. Isn't it time for teachers to get a lot of papers checked right. It's time to get up and move around and kind of monitor what's going on. But chances are as Paris you're going to be just testing maybe one or two kids at a time. Would you agree. Do you ever go into classrooms with the teacher and just help kind of monitor and check. The class. Anybody. Somebody that's been in both. In the classroom with your end by yourself. Good. It's kind of nice to hear how those teachers are constantly responding to kids asking the questions to. As a model of what you can do. Okay. Any other questions about the environment. Any concerns. Do any of you have you any of you have any questions. Any concerns. Do any of you have you any of you had to. To work in an environment that you didn't think was. Real great for testing. I once had to give the practice test to. About 34 third graders in a 84 degree room. It was horrible. I actually had that experience as well. Okay. I had that experience as well. Once when I was teaching we and we had these big windows and. It was just so hot in there and it was interesting to watch the kids because it was like. They had a hard time concentrating. I had a hard time concentrating and just to watch them. Trying to read and answer the questions and focus on what they're supposed to be focused on when they were all sweating and tired because. I'm tired as well so. I think I was sharing with Tina yesterday too as we talked about some of this stuff. I had a colleague who handed out peppermint. Because peppermint is known to keep you really alert. So it's good for testing. But a kid was sucking on a peppermint and started to choke on it. It slipped down their throat and I think they had to do the Heimlich and. It was very distracting to all of the kids in the class so. You know this was little very well-meaning thing. And came down to backfire on us so. Okay. So NCAS test administration when we actually go to give that test. Okay so if you get any kind of training manuals go ahead and read through those. And I'm going to show you a manual. At the end here when we talk a little bit about accommodations. That you know you definitely want to read over. When I do doubles trainings maybe some of you have been to those. I always say reread the manual right before you give the test because it just refreshes our memory. Do distribute necessary test materials to students. So anything that they need to have in front of them give out. Including for NCAS they can have the blank scratch paper and things like that. I always handed out new pencils to my kids that were sharpened and nice. So make sure you get those out. Do provide students with the blank scratch paper. But for ACT they can only use the scratch paper provided by ACT. So I would venture to guess none of you have to give an ACT test. Is that right? Do any of you have to help with ACT? So. No. Okay. Also we do. The printed NCAS math grade specific reference sheet can be given out to kids in fourth through eighth grade. So there might be a little math reference sheet for each of those grades that they can have during the test. So we'd want to make that available. Do read student directions word for word exactly as printed in test manuals. So every kid needs to hear those directions read the same way. It might seem a little redundant or a little bit easy but we need to make sure that we are very equitable in that every kid gets the same directions. We do use a natural tone and manner when reading directions to students. If a mistake is made when reading stop and say oh no that's wrong. Listen again. Okay so if you make a mistake in reading it tell them that was wrong. Let's listen to these directions again. Also use the same procedures for each student. So yeah try to be natural and welcoming to the kids. Not you know it's a formal time of year where you know it's a high stakes test but just be natural be who you are and put them at ease that way. Okay now these are don'ts for actually giving the test. We don't play any music during test sessions. Now I have to admit. I was a teacher who loved music on in my classroom when my kids had work time we had music on a lot that this is not good during the state test. No music on. Also do not provide those refreshments during the test sessions like I said the peppermint could backfire on you. You know my my co-teacher and I oftentimes would bring the kids breakfast treats to have before testing but we would never have them on guests during the test. Right. Food is put away all those distractions like music put away and we're just testing. Also we don't require students to have proctor approval to move on or to end their test session. So you know kids don't have to say oh I'm at the end of this question can I go on to the next question. I'm sure in the state's mind that might lead to someone leading them to the right answer of no you're not ready to go on. Because you mark that question that way. So I'm not they get to work through their test at their own pace and to end it when they're ready to end the test. So many assessment irregularities have occurred when students were provided unapproved accommodations. Or electric electronic devices such as cell phones were used. OK so I'm unapproved accommodations would be like oh I let that kid use text to speech even though they weren't supposed to have it. Or oh he was having a bad day so I decided I'd read him the hard words. Right. And they shouldn't have those electronic devices around like their cell phones. They could be texting questions to someone else. They can Google a question. Yeah Google a question. Why not. That's really my best friend. OK. So we really want to avoid those because we know that those have led to bad things. And I mean seriously schools have been caught doing a lot of crazy things. I remember. I think this was not in the state. But there was a principal who was fired because she was changing answers on kids test. And of course with our computerized tests you know that isn't an option anymore. But she's who that's a career ender. It's not worth it. OK so let's talk some more about those accommodations that may have. You know just been. You know. Well we talked about giving inappropriate accommodations but let's talk about what are accommodations. I'm sure that a lot of your kids that you're pulling to test. Have an accommodation. Would you agree. That maybe testing is a little bit different for them than the other kids. I'm seeing. I don't have a couple heads shaking. Yes I'm sorry Ben what. I don't have any of those. You don't. Can I just tell you even going to a quiet room to take a test with just one other person in the room. That's an accommodation. So OK let's talk about those a little bit more. Accommodations are changes and procedures or materials that ensure equitable access to instruction. All an assessment content. And generate valid assessment results for students who need them. Accommodations are available for students for whom there is a documented need on an IEP. Or a 504 accommodation plan. OK. So. And the kids that would have a change in the test to make it fair for them based on maybe some learning disabilities that they have. Those students would have an IEP or a 504 plan stating that testing will look different for them. OK. So we can't just decide. That you know Jane came into school today and she wasn't feeling very well. So we're going to change the way Jane takes her test. Can't be that way. Those are really thought out. They're decided on by a team. And. They're really planned around the students abilities. And we really want to keep the assessment as true to form as possible and only change the things that are absolutely necessary for that student. And I think one part of that is if it's not written there you can't do it. Like if you have any question what's going on. And I know sometimes you don't get to see that but having a conversation with the teacher or the special ed director or something it's not written. It's pretty much you're not able to do it. And I think that this is another time. Because you know IPs come up a lot in our talks with Paris right. This is a time that it's really important that you have a conversation with either the classroom teacher or the classroom teacher or the sped teacher about what is allowed and what isn't allowed as you proctor that test. Right. You don't want to get yourself into trouble with that. So you need to be very clear and sit down with them. So how many people do get to chat with the. Sped teacher or the classroom teacher. About accommodations before the testing. I'm seeing a couple hands up in Spencer. I'm going to move in either screen. Yes. Yes. Okay. Good. I think I mean it's just it's really important to know what a student has written and doesn't. From my first year teaching. You know what did I know that first year. And here it came the day to proctor my. I think I don't think I think they were CTBS or something like that. And I didn't go ask anybody because I didn't know to. When it came to talk to me about accommodations. And the morning of was really hectic and crazy because I wasn't sure about what I needed to do for my 26 little second graders. So. Yeah, I just think as soon as you get a testing schedule and you find out who you're going to test. Get to those teachers and ask about any accommodations. So I'm we were provided this in SCAS accessibility manual. And that is actually a link there. So later you could access this presentation and click on the link. I'll do it here in just a moment. Commodations. Sorry, Steph. I'll have that posted on the website today. And maybe Tina on the website, we could even put this link. Yep. I'm separate too. But if you click on this. I wanted to make some slides and provide you a bit of information here and there. Oh my gosh. There is so much information in this manual. I wouldn't know where to start or end. So well, I did know where to start on page 24 is really the section that we want to look at the rest of this talks about the decision making process on how to decide what accommodations a student would receive. Kind of like steps for that IEP team. And these are accommodations for kids with an IEP of 504. Also EL kids. Our English learners and EL kids that also have a learning disability. So one thing in bold here it says modifications are not allowed on state assessments. So modifications are different from accommodations. Okay, so modifications would really change or lower or reduce the expectations for the kid. And we can't do that for the state test, but we can do some accommodations. So let's get to that. Again, I'm scrolling through. I'm sorry. I don't mean to make you a motion sick doing this. Okay. So on page 24. They talk about embedded universal features available to all students. So these universal things. Every kid has access to not just 504 and IEP kids. So there's an answer eliminator. We called that flash and trash in my classroom. That X is out the wrong answer. So all kids have have that feature available to them where they can click on the wrong. On the questions that they think are wrong and X amount. There's also flexible scheduling available to all kids. And so your school can kind of decide on some testing parameters and things like that for the kids. There's a highlighter feature for the test. A keyboard navigation like they can use the arrow keys. There's a line reader or line guide. It's kind of like a highlighted section that helps them kind of track through the passages. There are some math tools available to different grade levels on different tests. For instance, there's a calculator that'll only appear on questions that allow that calculator. You know, if the question is nine plus nine, they can't use a calculator. But if it gets to be a more complicated question, it's really testing another thing rather than their computation. They can use it. There's a notepad that's kind of like scratch paper for them. And there's zoom where they can zoom into some items. Okay. So there's also some non embedded universal features. That means that kids all can have access to this, but it's not like a part of the test. So for instance, that alternate location. So here it's saying that they could take the test at home or in a care facility with direct supervision. So say you have a home bound student or a student in some sort of rehab facility. They need to take their assessment. A proctor could go out to that place and give them the test as long as it's supervised in the same way. There's things with the directions. I'm not going to read through each one of these, but I'm going to go through a little bit faster because you can go back and come to these and read them more carefully with directions with color contrast. I know I've had color blind kids that need to see it a little bit differently. There's cultural considerations. And a noise buffer or headphones as long as they're not connected to an electronic device. Some autistic kids like to have headphones on. Any kind of redirection that they may need during the test. They can have that scratch paper and that they all can have that distraction free setting. So we can see we go down also that they, student can read the test aloud to themselves as long as they're not distracting other students or that the other kids can't hear. And there's some medical devices that are allowed in the testing, of course. So then we get down to there's some linguistic supports that can be used for our EL kids. And we can kind of see through there that the test that some of the EL kids take is the ELPA 21. And I'm sure your ELL coordinator will help you with all of that. Some of these are just for math and science that you could have a word to word dictionary for them bilingual dictionary where it just would say, you know, in English this word is this word and in Spanish it's this. You know, it just gives the word not the meaning. We have some for EL's that are math, science and the ELA here. And we'll keep running through that. Okay. Now we have, I'm sorry, I skipped through that. We have some ELL. Okay. Now we have, I'm sorry, I skipped through that. We have some embedded accommodations available for IEPs and 504s. So that means kids who have those IEPs or those 504 plans, there's some built in things that they can use here. And here's actually that color chooser that I talked about some of my kids with color blindness. And then there's also text to speech available. So really the days of having to have you read the test to them, I think are gone, right? Because we have text to speech and instead they can listen to that test. The nice thing about that is it's only available for the parts that are allowed to read. For instance, on the ELA test, the English language arts test, you can't read the passages to them. So text to speech would not be allowed on that part. Okay. Non-embedded accommodations, again, not part of the test is that we could give a paper pencil. We could give some math supports that are listed over here. There's some assistive technologies that we could use. An audio amplification device. So to make it louder for our kids who have hearing impairments or even Braille. And we keep on going through here the flexible scheduling. We've talked about the large print test booklet is available. And your special ed teachers would order that and have that ready at the start of the testing period. Okay. So we see a few more of those non-embedded accommodations. And there are a lot of them, right? 19 different accommodations that are allowed on those tests. But what we have to remember is it's not your decision. It's not a decision to be made on the day of the test. These are decisions that are written into their IEPs. So although they're here and you could familiarize yourself with them here, it's really whatever's in that IEP. So we need to talk to the teachers about what exactly those accommodations can be for each student. And then here's kind of a nice little chart. That you could print out a little checklist. And maybe you want to print a couple of these out of this manual and write each kid's name at the top. And then you would know, oh, this kid can use the bilingual dictionary. And they can also use the native language classification of directions or clarification of directions. And then you could have a checklist for each kid and their accommodations. So that might be kind of helpful to use. Also for their accommodations, there's a do's and don'ts chart here. So you could access that to kind of look through, you know, what can I do? What can't I do with each student? Okay. So there's read a lab guidelines. I mean, really this is long and, you know, there's a, there's a lot here. Even talking about what to do right after the test. So I think that this is a good place to really go back in reference before you give that NCAS test to any students. And Stephanie, you said that their part, that main part for them begins on page 24. Yeah. So 24. And I think this is about the end here. No, there's a little bit. I mean, here we're at site translation for kids who have visual impairments. There's everything from being able to be a scribe for a student and write for them. So, you know, that there's quite a bit here on each individual kind of accommodation. I'd love to hear some questions about accommodations, because I think that's where testing really kind of gets complicated. No questions. Paris, come on now. How about any questions about any, anything with testing? What questions do you have or what's difficult as you give tests to kids? I have a quick question. Earlier in the test there, earlier in this, you talked about not discussing or talking about any part of the test, like outside of the room after the test. Yeah. So even between teachers, if you notice, oh my gosh, those questions were hard for this person or whatever, you're not supposed to discuss stuff like that. You're really not. Isn't that the hardest? Yeah. It's like, I've been through a battle with this kid. Right. And now I can't even talk about it. They really not supposed to. Yeah. What happens in testing stays in testing. Does anybody have a situation that happened during testing that you'd like to share or something that you've experienced from your testing? Endeavors. I don't know what else to call them. Nobody seems to be too excited about testing. I have to say this. Okay. I have a great story. This was kind of like an ethnic testing moment for me. Giving my NISA assessment. I believe it was my last year. And I, you know, I had my room full of kids and I had asked, you know, do I need to plug these laptops in over lunch while we go to lunch? And they said, no, they should be fine. They should be charged up and fine. So we went to lunch and we came back and I got the class all calmed down. You know, I tried to be in this real then kind of moment. You know, just, just calm and get them ready and confident for the test. And. One by one, the computer started to die. And I was kind of dying too. Right. I was panicking. So, um, I had called over to the other third grade room who wasn't testing at the time and said, Oh my gosh, help me. What do I do? And I, I called our computer coordinator and she was busy with something in a different building. And I, I, I, I called our assessment coordinator and he was busy with someone and I had to get the, the cords for the computer. We're in the cart locked in another room where there was someone proctoring a test. And so she wouldn't answer the door because she didn't want to disturb this kid's test. And so I, I finally, I, I was trying to stay really calm for all my kids, you know, and I said, everyone put your heads down for a moment. I went over to the other third grade room. I think what tears in my eyes and said, I need help. Finally, we could get a hold of my principal to go help me. And so I think my, and my kids, I don't know that my kids ever did. So I think my kids, I don't know that my kids ever realized anything was wrong because I just kind of kept it so calm through all those phone calls too. But I think the moral to the story there is to just stay calm. Everything's going to be okay. And I think kids are used to having to make a lot more changes than we are. But we made it through. So I, I have an experience. My question for some of you is how many of you are testing on iPads? Have you done any of your testing on iPads? I see. So here's my, I guess, latest experience with testing. We had just, we had done an iPad deployment in the district I was in and that we were told, yeah, everything should work just fine on an iPad. The testing should be fine. And so we had the whole school set up, the whole high school, I should say set up to take tests. And our parents were in their designated rooms with their designated kids. And it was just crazy because all of a sudden things stopped working. The, the lockdown browser wasn't working. And we had, there's four of us trying to run around and fix and help everybody. We had a nightmare because we had people running through the halls trying to get to people in Paris were sticking their heads out the doors, waving for help. It was just crazy. So needless to say the next year iPads were off the, the, they were not getting used. You know what? These kids probably went home that night and their parents probably said had testing go and they probably said fine. Yeah, they probably did. I guarantee I went home and went to bed that they really did. Yeah. So any other questions anybody think of with testing and what to do or what not to do? Okay. Well, next time we'll be meeting you for checking for understanding. So when you're working with a set of students, how do you understand, how do you know when they understand and when they need more help on topics? So which is that formative assessment thing that we were talking about. Yeah. We'll see you on April 2nd at 2pm. Right here in zoom land. We'll send out an email the day or two before. Just to remind you, but, um, you know, we always look forward to seeing you all. Did you all get your postcards in the mail? Oh, I'm glad you asked. Yeah. Yeah. You sounded so excited about that. Yeah. Was that a good reminder of the enthusiasm from the summer? Well, hang in there guys. Testing season gets stressful, but I know that the kids feel better because you're there for them. So, um, hang in there. You can do it and we'll see in April for some good talk. Thanks guys. All right.