Standards & Assessments

Our goal is to educate each child to their highest potential. To achieve this goal, teachers and staff use many measures throughout the school year and over multiple years to determine how students are learning, growing, and how our schools and district are meeting student needs.

Teachers use multiple measures every day to see how well students are growing academically, emotionally, and behaviorally. Teachers gauge students’ progress through classroom observation, performance on tasks, classroom assessments, and homework. We also use district and state assessments to look at student progress longitudinally during their years at Lakeside.

Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are those that help identify student current understanding and learning to help guide subsequent instruction. These are used several times throughout the school year to help determine progress. In Language Arts, Lakeside uses Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), and running records to understand students' reading and literacy levels. For English Language Learners, Lakeside also uses Benchmark Access assessments.

Summative Assessments

Summative assessments help teachers identify how much a student has learned after a course of study is completed. Examples of summative assessments that Lakeside uses include chapter tests and unit tests from curriculum, project-based learning (PBL) assessments and writing projects.

California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP)

During late spring, students in grades 3rd through 8th participate in the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments (SBAC) which are part of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System. The tests:

Measure how well your child has mastered the skills and content in math and English language arts (ELA) at their grade level (grade 3-8). And in Science for grades 5 and 8.
Align with the instruction that takes place in the classroom everyday.
Match the learning goals of each grade level.
Assess critical thinking, analytical writing, and problem solving skills, which are needed for success in college and a 21st century career.

The assessments have different types of questions including traditional multiple-choice questions as well as sections that require students to explain their answers, show their work, and compose essays. The tests are computer adaptive which enables measurement across the full range of achievement.

General Education students will take the SBAC. Special Education students may take either the SBAC or the California Alternate Assessment (CAA) depending on their IEP. 5th and 8th graders also take the California Science Test (CAST).

For more information, visit the California Department of Education CAASPP website.

ELPAC

English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) are those used to "measure how well students in kindergarten (K) through grade twelve understand English when it is not their primary language. Information from the ELPAC helps your child's teacher provide support in listening, speaking, reading, and writing." This is a summative assessment administered toward the end of the school year.