INFORMATIONAL

The Division of Assessment and Reporting conducted 
regional workshops in advance of the spring SOL test 
administration.  During these workshops several good 
suggestions were made for improvements in the procedures 
and reports related to the SOL testing.  The Division of 
Assessment and Reporting has worked with the contractor, 
Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement, to implement a 
number of these suggestions.  The changes listed below 
will become part of the program with the spring 1999 
test administration. 

        1. A Preliminary School List Report will 
        accompany the first set of individual  Student Performance
        Reports sent to school  divisions.  The first set of
        Student Performance Reports is for those students 
        whose answer documents were not alerted 
        (with no answer document errors) and were 
        thus processed in the 14-calendar day 
        cycle.  This means there will be a 
        Preliminary School List Report for these 
        students and a "final" School List Report 
        when all answer documents have been 
        processed. 

        2. Score reports returned to school divisions 
        will be packaged in separate boxes for 
        each school.  This should facilitate the 
        distribution of results to schools.  
        Packaging will be changed to ensure that 
        the contents do not shift in transit. 


        3. The student's grade level will be printed 
        on the Student Performance Reports for 
        high school tests.  This was not the case 
        in previous administrations. 

        4. The student writing papers returned to the 
        schools will contain a more legible code 
        number.  This should assist in the 
        distribution of these materials back to 
        the schools. 


We have appreciated the tremendous work of school 
division staff in administering the SOL testing program. 
We will continue to work with you to make additional 
changes to improve the operations of the program.  If you 
have any questions regarding these issues, please contact 
the Division of Assessment and Reporting at (804) 225-
2102. 


PDS/CMH/atb