Updated “Basics” Documents and New Dedicated Email Now Available

November 18th, 2014

The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) is working to provide AzMERIT information to all stakeholders in a timely and efficient manner. ADE will be communicating with district testing coordinators weekly; they have been asked to share relevant AzMERIT information with their superintendents and other staff members within the district. Additionally, ADE will provide you an update on AzMERIT every two weeks. Below is a brief update on the new assessment and a summary of the information that was sent to testing coordinators the past two weeks.

Earlier this month, the Arizona State Board of Education (Board) adopted a new statewide achievement test, AzMERIT. Students in Grades 3 through high school will take AzMERIT in English Language Arts and Mathematics.

ADE has worked diligently and expeditiously to implement AzMERIT and will continue to strive to deliver excellent customer service by providing timely and informative materials to students, parents, teachers, school administrators, and education stakeholders throughout the transition to this new test.

During the past two weeks following the Board’s announcement, ADE has shared important information with Arizona’s education stakeholders, including testing windows and resources designed to help schools communicate with parents.

We are also pleased to be able to provide two additional updates that we hope will help ease the transition:

  1. The Basics series of one-page informational documents have been revised to be AzMERIT specific. English and Spanish versions are posted at www.azed.gov/AzMERIT under “What Does AzMERIT Mean for Students and Schools?”
  2. The Assessment section has a new email address dedicated to AzMERIT issues: [email protected]. Please send any AzMERIT questions to this email address.

As Arizona continues to transition to AzMERIT, ADE will be seeking educator involvement on several projects. If you are interested in getting involved, please complete or update a Committee Application.

For more information on the administration of AzMERIT, please visit ADE’s website at www.azed.gov/AzMERIT.