Oregon Department of Education (ODE) completed a successful operational science assessment in the spring of 2019 and the initial standard setting process in August of 2019; however, we need to address limitations we encountered in recruiting efforts for that standard setting. We are engaging with several race/ethnicity group community partners who represent Oregon’s diverse race/ethnicity groups to ensure that we are hearing from educators who represent our historically underrepresented populations in a manner that respects their perspectives. ODE is committed to ensuring that a substantial community engagement process occurs before our summative science scores are presented to the State Board of Education and made public.
2018-19 OSAS Science Assessment scores will likely not be available before the opening of the 2019-20 assessment window. We advise high schools to make decisions about re-assessing students after 2018-19 scores are made available to avoid unnecessarily re-assessing students. Students who have previously banked a passing score either on the legacy OAKS assessment or the OSAS assessment will not need to re-assess.
Students may wish to take the OSAS Science Assessment again in an effort to improve their score, or if they deem it inconvenient to wait for scores to be made available. In cases where the student had previously banked a legacy OAKS passing score, the new OSAS Science Assessment Score will replace the legacy OAKS score. For students who have previously taken the OSAS Science Assessment (2018-19), the higher of the two scores will be retained.
Students may take the OSAS Science Assessment prior to their 11th grade year, the year of accountability; however, the student’s readiness for the expected rigor and content of the assessment should be taken into consideration in cases of 9th and 10th grade students wishing to take the high school OSAS Science Assessment prior to 11th grade.