Starting the 2014-2015 school year, there will be two more tests implemented into the high school curriculum, the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). The PARCC is a replacement for TCAPs (Transitional Colorado Academic Program) which was a link between the CSAPs (Colorado Student Assessment Program) and the PARCC. Both tests will also be taken online, rather than in previous years where standardized tests would be taken in hand written booklets.

The CMAS test will be a senior only test covering social studies and science, which will be used to see how much information students are retaining and how well they are learning throughout their senior year. “It’s almost like an exit exam,” Dean of Students Tara Oswald said. “How do we know how our seniors are doing?” . CMAS testing will be from Tuesday Nov. 4 to Thursday Nov. 6 from 7:40 a.m. to 11:10 a.m. with a break every day from 9:20 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

The PARCC test will be for grades 9 through 11 and will be over reading and math. The PARCC test will be taken twice a year. The first test will be the PARCC PBA (Performance-Based Assessment) and the second will be the PARCC EOY (End-of-Year Assessment). The PBA will be from Tuesday March 10 to Thursday March 12 from 7:40 a.m. to 11:10 a.m. There will be a break from 9:20 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. The EOY will be from Wednesday April 29 to Friday March 1 from 7:40 a.m. to 11:10 a.m.

Following Colorado Senate Bill 191, 20% of teacher evaluations are now based on student performance, usually assessed by standardized tests such as the CMAS and PARCC. “It gives us a broader picture of how students are performing,” said Oswald. “As a teacher it eats up a lot of time, it’s sometimes hard to see the value of it. That’s a negative drawback- it’s a lot of testing. But hopefully the benefits of it will start to offset that.”