Van Alstyne ISD wants our community to understand how the state rescore process works for state assessments, including STAAR and TELPAS.

After students complete their test, TELPAS and STAAR/EOC responses are scored by machine. Districts can then request a second, human-read scoring for students. We resubmitted the Speaking and Writing portions of TELPAS and the extended constructed responses (ECRs) on the RLA STAAR for rescoring for students we felt should have received a higher score. Since districts are required to pay $50 for each exam that comes back with no score change, we can only submit up to our allotted budget.

Of 17 TELPAS exams submitted, 8 (47%) came back with a higher score than the students originally received. Of 84 STAAR/EOC exams submitted, 46 (55%) came back higher.

All score changes are already reflected in student results and no one should expect to see a change in their student's score. Student growth is a priority for our district. As long as the state continues to allow rescore submissions, we will submit as many exams as possible, regardless of whether a student is close to moving up a performance level. This will allow more student responses to be evaluated by a human scorer and help ensure that student growth is reflected as accurately as possible.

We will have more information on the rescoring process at our next Regular Board Meeting next Monday, Sept. 14 at 7:00 p.m. in the VAISD Board Room.