This just in from the New York State Department of Education regarding this week's winter storm:
From: Ken Wagner (NYSED)
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2015 10:12 AM
To: District Superintendents; School Superintendents; Charter Administrators; Public Administrators; Nonpublic Administrators
Cc: Cosimo Tangorra; Candy Shyer; Steven Katz
Subject: Important Update on January Regents Exams
Importance: High
Colleagues,
As you know, New York State will be affected by an historic snow storm over the next few days. We are seeing reports that well over half of our students from Montauk to Utica will be affected by one or more days of school closures during the administration of the January Regents Exams.
In addition, Tuesday is one of the final administrations of the Integrated Algebra Regents Exam, which, as you know, is a graduation requirement and an exam being phased out as part of our assessment transition.
Therefore, the Department will make the following one-time adjustment in reaction to this historic, extraordinary, and widespread confluence of events.
First and most important - be safe during the storm. Close school if you need to close school.
When the storm has passed, each school superintendent, charter school leader, and nonpublic school principal in a district or school impacted by weather-related closures must send to the Department at emscassessinfo@nysed.gov a description of the date(s) on which schools were closed due to weather, which January Regents Exams had to be canceled, when you plan to administer the tests, and your comprehensive plan to ensure the security of exams and scoring materials during this time period.
Please observe the following constraints when submitting your plan:
- All exams should be administered as close as possible to the original administration window.
- All January Regents Exams must be administered by Friday, January 30, 2015.
- Although scoring materials will be available according to the previously posted schedule, you may not access or distribute these scoring materials until all exams have been administered in your school.
- Regents Exam booklets should be kept secure until 5 pm on Friday, January 30.
We will work together to ensure that this historic and extraordinary situation is navigated in a way that keeps us all safe, is fair to students, and trusts our school and district leaders to preserve the integrity of the Regents Exam program.
If you have any questions, please contact our team at emscassessinfo@nysed.gov or 518-474-5902 ( tel:518-474-5902 ).
Ken