Assessments are an important part of California’s plan for high-quality teaching and learning, which seeks to help all students graduate prepared for college-level coursework and a 21st-century career. Like class assignments and report cards, assessments are one gauge of student progress, providing information to schools, teachers, and parents about how students performed against California’s challenging new goals for learning.

Your Child’s Smarter Balanced Score Report
How did your child do on the Smarter Balanced assessments? Parents are receiving new score reports. Staff from the DUSD will provide information on reading and interpreting your child’s score reports. All parents and community members are welcome.

CAASPP Student Score Reports
Parents of students who participated in any California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) testing in ELA, Math, and Science will be mailed individual student score reports for the CAASPP. These reports will include detailed information about their child’s performance and the new end-of-year tests which were administered in the spring.

Additional links for understanding the CAASPP student score reports:

• Download parent guides to the student reports from the CDE in English and Spanish

• View resources from Great Schools on what steps families can take to support student learning based on the Smarter Balanced results

Why Do We Need Assessments?

Assessments aren't just about the numbers, they're also a chance for reflection and growth. Look for areas for improvement, and remember to celebrate your child's accomplishments too!

Not only are assessments a good way to evaluate your child's progress and accomplishments, but they also inform teachers, principals, and the district. Take a look at the various ways they're used to enhance teaching and learning at our schools.

Report Cards
In DUSD, we send report cards home to families of all students after the end of each quarter. Teachers use report cards to share information about a student’s progress in meeting the expectations set out by the various content standards.

Learn how to use Report Cards to support your child’s learning (Espanol)

Interim Assessments
DUSD will focus on the administration of robust constructed response tasks in math and ELA. In ELA, these will be writing prompts. In math, these will be designated Milestone Tasks within the Core Curriculum. These tasks will provide teachers with evidence of what students are able to do, as well as a rich common foundation for collaboration and calibration around expectations of student work. District-wide professional development around scoring and calibration of these tasks will be offered. In addition to constructed response tasks, DUSD will also use the new Interim Assessment Blocks (IABs) provided by Smarter Balanced.

Further Resources
How Do Schools Use Data? (Espanol)
Teachers Use Assessment Data to Build Excitement for Reading

Questions? Call or email your school or our District Programs Director.