Dear Parents/Guardians and Students:

 

We want to bring to your attention a new statewide assessment that will be implemented in the 2014-2015 school year and that will affect students in their freshman, sophomore and junior years.

 

The current High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA), administered in the junior year of high school, will be discontinued after the 2013-2014 school year.  In its place will be the PARCC assessment.  PARCC stands for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.  Eighteen states and the District of Columbia are governing bodies in this partnership, New Jersey included.  The partnership has developed new K-12 assessments in English Language Arts and Mathematics.  The assessments are designed to measure the full range of the Common Core State Standards in these disciplines, which the New Jersey Board of Education adopted in 2010.

 

With PARCC being administered during the freshman, sophomore and junior years, the data received can assist us in identifying those students who are off track from being ready for college or a career, years before graduation.  We are told that hundreds of colleges plan to use PARCC scores to make course placement decisions for incoming freshmen, and a student’s PARCC score will appear on his/her high school transcript.

 

One of the most significant differences coming with the PARCC assessment is that students will be taking the assessment online.  This is one of the driving forces behind our district purchasing a mobile device for the freshmen class and we are looking to expand the distribution of a mobile device to other grade levels next year.

 

The New Jersey Department of Education has selected our district to participate in a field test of the PARCC during the current 2013-2014 school year.  Only students in certain courses will be involved and those students will receive more information from their principal at a later date.

 

If you would like to learn more about PARCC, please visit: http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc.  We will continue to keep you updated as we receive guidance from the New Jersey Department of Education and work to implement this new PARCC assessment in the 2014-2015 school year.

 

Sincerely,

 

Charles M. Shaddow, Ph.D.

Superintendent of Schools

North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School District