The New Jersey Department of Education recently issued a broadcast providing a timeline of when districts can expect to receive their final Start Strong assessment reports as well as when they must provide the results to parents/guardians and their local boards of education.

Start Strong assessments were administered at the beginning of the school year to assist districts in identifying how to help students succeed. Student level reports were made available to districts in real time as students completed the assessments.

District Receipt of Individual Student Reports and Reporting Requirements

By Dec. 12, 2022, Individual Student Reports from the Start Strong assessments in English language arts, mathematics and science will be distributed to district central offices.

Individual student reports will be sent to both the sending and receiving districts for students who receive instruction at a school other than their accountable school. Once districts receive the paper reports, a copy must be distributed to parents and/or guardians within 30 days, which will be Jan. 12, 2023.

The NJDOE encourages districts to share the individual student reports with students’ families as soon as possible to facilitate timely discussion of key areas in which children may need additional support. A sample parent cover letter is available on the NJDOE’s NJSLA/NJGPA Resources for Districts webpage.

Additionally, districts must report student-level assessment results to local boards within 60 days of receipt, which will be Feb. 13, 2023. The report must include aggregated and disaggregated subgroup data, as well as comparative analyses and appropriate intervention strategies. The number of students for reporting is a minimum of 10 as per suppression rules applied to student data to protect student confidentiality. A sample slideshow template for reporting Start Strong assessment results to local boards of education is available on the NJDOE’s NJSLA/NJGPA Resources for Districts webpage.

Reporting Considerations

Summative and summary files have already been made available electronically to assigned school and district staff. The NJDOE encourages school and district leaders to review, analyze and discuss assessment results with staff as soon as possible.

The Start Strong assessment results should be carefully interpreted in combination with additional indicators of achievement, considering local education conditions. When publicly reporting assessment results, consider the impact of the recent pandemic on learning and testing conditions. The NJDOE discourages districts from comparing any individual student/school/district Start Strong data to any New Jersey Student Learning Assessment data.

The NJDOE reminds districts that Start Strong assessments were not designed to predict future student performance on the NJSLA. Rather, the assessment was developed to inform instruction in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In accordance with New Jersey Administrative Code 6A:8-4.5 (b), the NJDOE shall report to district boards of education on the performance of all students and of student subgroups. As such, the NJDOE plans to publicly release statewide district and school-level data in due course.

For additional resources, please see the “District Communication Resources” section of NJDOE’s broadcast.

Online Portal with Video Score Reports

In addition to the paper Individual Student Reports, 2022 Start Strong student reports will be accessible in an online portal for parents/guardians, the New Jersey Parent Portal, on Dec. 7, 2022. To view Individual Student Reports, parents/guardians must create an account. If parents/guardians do not already have an account, then one can be created by using the claim code provided on the paper Individual Student Report.

The portal will include a video score report that communicates information from the Individual Student Report through animations and a voiceover in New Jersey’s top five student home languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic.

Questions about the release of the fall 2022 Start Strong statewide assessment results can be sent via email, or you can call 609-376-3960.