State Assessment News & Updates

• TODAY, 8/29 - 11:30 am - last opportunity for a brief overview of the TIDE facelift
• Check your email for an invite to join us if you missed to first 2 opportunities earlier this week.
• September 1 - 10 - out of office, no access to email
• Call me no later than August 29 if you have questions.
• I expect to be back in the office on September 11/12.

Campus coordinators for state assessments should be reading the weekly Principals' Newsletter. Additionally, I will send a weekly email most weeks. Please be sure to schedule time to read each weekly email.

If you need to catch up on my weekly email, find links on the Resources page of our PfISD State Assessments website. You'll find last week's email there if you missed it.

Find the archives of the weekly PfISD Principals' Newsletter at this link. If you're not receiving these, ask your principal to get you added to the mailing list.

STAAR campus coordinators should begin planning NOW for Interims (Window 2) for Science & Social Studies.

We'll cover interims in depth at training in September. See you there.

With TIDE refreshed and rolled out for 2025-2026, most of our students in grades 1-12 have now been uploaded as long as they had a TSDS ID in Skyward earlier this week. Further information has been shared with campus coordinators.

By October 2, campus coordinators will create TE (teacher) user accounts for RLA, math, science and social studies teachers of tested grades/courses so they can access detailed assessment data in CRS. Each teacher must be associated with students on rosters created TIDE by the campus coordinator. Instructions are available on our Quick Guide linked below.

The Campus Report View (CRV) user role may be used for staff who need to access state assessment history and/or results for upcoming interims in CRS for all students on a campus.

The campus coordinator will need to train campus users in the appropriate use of CRS. Trainings in Cambium’s LMS may be used for this purpose.

With students uploaded into TIDE, we have been able to access state assessment history for many students (if we were able to match via TSDS ID, name and DOB).

• This state assessment history has now been uploaded into Testhound (EOC history only) and Eduphoria Aware (all state assessment programs).

• This data will also be uploaded into ODS and Skyward (transcripts) over the next few months.

As students continue to enroll, campus coordinators may need to manually add students to TIDE according to instructions that have been shared. We will also continue to periodically upload students into TIDE to alleviate the amount of manual data entry.

In some cases, campus staff may need to call the prior campus to obtain state assessment history if we were not able to match the student by TSDS ID, name and DOB).

District/campus staff are not permitted to access TEA’s Family Portal.

The campus coordinator is responsible for the appropriate use of user roles. Most campus users will be teachers who are attached to students via rosters created by the campus coordinator. A few examples of how user accounts may be configures is below.

• An LPAC or other program administrator will be assigned the Teacher (TE) user role and assigned to a roster with all students who participate in the program.
• Counselors will be assigned a Teacher (TE) user role and be assigned to a roster of grade level/alpha students.
• Interventionists may be assigned a Teacher (TE) user role and be assigned to a roster of the group of students that they routinely work with.
• The Campus Report Viewer (CRV) user role may be assigned to select staff who have an educational need to access results for students across the campus. This user role should be used sparingly.
• Only campus staff employed as principal, assistant/associate or administrative interns may be assigned the Principal (PR) user role.
• The campus coordinator is not authorized to assign the Campus Coordinator (CTC) user role.

Refer to the user role matrix to understand what each user role can access.

Campus Coordinators will refer to our Quick Guide for instructions on creating user accounts, rosters and other tasks in TIDE. Failure to adhere to these instructions can ultimately impact reporting of state assessment results that will impact accountability calculations.

The Quick Guide may need some minor updates after TIDE's recent refresh, but the gist of the detailed instructions remains the same.

To maintain your user account in TIDE, complete the trainings noted below.

Returning Campus Coordinators

• "What's New for 2025-2026 in TIDE and TDS" (11 minutes)
• Managing Secure Test Materials (12 minutes)

Campus Coordinators Who Are New to the Role in PfISD

• TIDE Module 1: Systems Overview and User Management (18 minutes)
• TIDE Module 2: Preparing for Testing (34 minutes)
• TIDE Module 3: During and After Testing (coming soon!)

Additional trainings in the LMS are available and you are welcome to complete any that you are interested in.

New campus coordinators met this week to begin to learn the ropes.

Here's some advice from experienced campus coordinators.

• Use interims and field testing as a way to fully practice the groups you will use for STAAR - you will likely be testing more than one grade level per day on STAAR - use interims and field testing to practice what that will look like - do you have enough test administrators? Devices? Rooms? Iron all that out wayyy ahead of time so STAAR runs smoothly!
• Schedule time for assessments on your calendar. Close your door and work or attend Kelly’s work days.
• Create a timeline of to-do’s for each assessment. This will help keep you on track with all of the things involved with testing and all other duties.. High School - keep up with EOC updates in Test Hound and transcripts -try updating weekly - schedule a specific day.
• Create a Checklist of items that others can assist with. I create a job description and assign staff to help such as Materials Manager (manages pencils, scratch paper etc), Accommodations Manager (manages and verifies that all accommodations are in each student’s individual accommodations bags) and Technology Manager (manages all things Technology). Remember you need a team and do not do it alone.
• Read to the end for one more tip!

The Departments of Curriculum & Innovation, Counseling, College & Career Readiness & Accountability & Assessment are collaborating on a districtwide plan to ensure equitable access for PfISD students to meet the TSIA2.0 College Readiness benchmark.

All high schools will administer TSIA2.0 according to our TSIA 2.0 Protocols & Procedures. The P&P include a worksheet each campus will use to plan the upcoming administration that will be scheduled September 22 - October 30. The worksheet for general planning is due completed no later than Friday, September 12.

Additional information, including a communication plan, will be shared in September.

If you're a high school campus coordinator, you are invited to share this with the person who will oversee TSIA2.0 if it's not you. This information will also be shared in tomorrow's weekly email to campus administrators.

As the campus coordinator for STAAR, you have already marked training dates on your calendar based on the schedule I have shared.

New coordinators for STAAR have been invited to an introduction at the end of August. No registration is necessary for this session.

Registration is now available in Kickup for the following sessions:

• Interims & TIDE, Sept. 24 & 26
• Accessibility, Oct. 24 & 27
• December STAAR EOC (High Schools only), Oct. 30
• Work Session, November session - coming soon!

TIP: Search "State Assessments" in Kickup to find these sessions.

The day prior to each session, please confirm time and location in Kickup. If you export the event to your calendar, any changes in Kickup will not be reflected in your calendar.

Resources for upcoming trainings as well as other resources for use during each administration are available and periodically updated.

Be sure you have this site bookmarked.

I'm happy to offer 2 options for STAAR scheduled. Option A is intended to meet the needs of campuses who requested a shortened window. Option B is intended to meet the needs of those who asked for more time to ease device management and attendance issues while still minimizing disruptions to instruction. At this time, each campus has selected their STAAR Calendar - Option A or Option B.

Campus test dates for each subject should be placed on the campus calendar and shared with families no later than September 5. Specific test dates for each student will be shared with families no later than February 27.

For all state assessment programs, each student will test on a PfISD managed device. Chromebooks are preferred. Devices used for state assessments should be routinely used in class. No installation is required for Chromebooks, and the Secure Test Browser is accessed as noted on the document linked below.

If additional devices are needed, Windows devices (laptops, desktops) may be used. The campus coordinator is responsible for installing the Secure Test Browser for 2025-2026 on Windows devices. Installation is completed once (according to the instructions below) in the current school year and is effective for all administrations.

✅Each campus coordinator for state assessments is expected to be knowledgeable of all devices, including headphones and headsets, on campus. Routine technology checks throughout the school year are encouraged to ensure all devices are accounted for and in working order.

Testhound staff will be in Pflugerville ISD to offer live in-person training! Join us.

• September 30, 9-12 - This is a work session, and in-person help will be provided on request. Use this time to get set up in Testhound for Interims, PSAT or another campus administration. (The work session is full day, but Testhound support staff will be present in the am only.)

Find the link and/or preregister at this link (must be logged in to Testhound).

When logged into Testhound, click "Help" to find more information and links to register or access recordings.

• From "Help", navigate to
• "Register for a Live TestHound Educational Session" or
• "Watch a Recorded Testhound Educational Session.

Upcoming Sessions

• CTC Alerts, Rooms, Test Administrators - Sept. 3, 10-10:30am
• CTC Setting Up Local Tests/Test Configuration - Sept. 10, 10-10:30am
• Campus Auto Pilot - Sept. 17, 10-10:30
• Campus Exclusions (High School) - Sept. 24, 10-10:30
• Testhound Tune-Ups (live work sessions, bring your questions)
• Mondays, 2:30-3pm
• Thursdays, 9-9:30am

"Sleep is an essential function that allows the body and mind to recharge. When we get the proper amount of sleep, we wake up feeling energized, invigorated, and mentally alert."

But how much sleep do we really need? Learn more.

Our team is taking walks around Lake Pflugerville & increasing water intake to benefit from Blue Mind Theory. Others say they're considering options! Learn more.

At this week's training for new campus coordinators, we talked about the WES Testing Trolley. Thanks to Tiffany Greene for sharing this with us last year.