ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú

To the Administrator Addressed (TAA) Correspondence

Provisionally Approved List of Alternative Beginning of Year and Middle of Year Assessments

Overview

House Bill (HB) 8, 89th Second Special Session, 2025, required the ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú (ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú) to approve alternative Beginning of Year (BOY) and Middle of Year (MOY) assessment instruments as alternatives to the Student Success Tool (SST). To support local planning and procurement before implementation requirements begin in the 2027–2028 school year, ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú is publishing, under Texas Education Code (TEC), , the Commissioner’s List of Approved Alternative Beginning of Year (BOY) and Middle of Year (MOY) Assessments with provisional approval status. The list of instruments can be found on the HB8 Alternative Assessments website.

Understanding Provisional Approval

The instruments included on this list have been granted provisional approval at this stage of implementation. Provisional approval is intended to provide school systems with information about assessment options while ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú continues implementation activities related to HB 8 requirements.

Vendors are responsible for maintaining an instrument's provisional approval status. To do so, vendors must continue to meet all applicable statutory, regulatory, programmatic, and administrative requirements; comply with ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú requests and directives; provide information, documentation, and other support requested by ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú; participate in required validation, comparability, and alignment activities; and address identified issues within timelines established by ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú.

An instrument may be revised, suspended, or removed from a provisionally approved list if a vendor does not fulfill these responsibilities, if the instrument does not satisfy applicable comparability or alignment expectations, or if other circumstances require action under applicable law, rule, agency process, or program requirements.

Procurement Considerations for School Systems

ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú recognizes that school systems will need to make procurement decisions before all implementation activities have been completed. Local school systems choosing to utilize approved alternative BOY and MOY assessments must pay for these assessments from local funds.

The instruments included on the provisional approved lists are expected to remain available for use by school systems so long as vendors continue to satisfy applicable requirements and maintain their approval status. However, because provisional approval is contingent upon ongoing participation in ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú implementation activities, school systems should consider the possibility that an instrument's approval status could change if a vendor does not meet applicable requirements or if the instrument does not satisfy ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú's established expectations for comparability, alignment, or other program requirements.

To help manage this risk, ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú recommends that school systems:

  • Avoid entering into agreements that extend beyond the 2028–29 school year.
  • Ensure procurement documents and agreements account for the possibility that an instrument may be removed from a provisional or approved list before publication of the final approved lists.
  • Include provisions that permit the school system to discontinue use of, or terminate an agreement for, an instrument that is no longer included on an applicable ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú-approved list.

School systems remain responsible for ensuring that any instrument used to meet TEC, §39.023(±ç) requirements appears on the applicable ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú-approved list at the time of administration.

For additional information, please refer to the HB 8 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

House Bill 8

Starting with the 2027–2028 school year, HB 8 will overhaul the Texas Assessment Program by replacing STAAR with a new instructionally supportive assessment program for Texas schools, referred to as the Student Success Tool (SST) in statute. The new program will include beginning-of-year (BOY), middle-of-year (MOY), and end-of-year (EOY) assessments for grades 3–8 and for Spanish grades 3–5. BOY and MOY assessments will be optional for end-of-course (EOC) assessments: Algebra I, Biology, English I, and U.S. History.

The new assessment program will include the following requirements:

  • Assessments must be shorter than STAAR assessments and must be designed to support accommodations for students who need them.
  • The BOY and MOY assessments will be adaptive to allow for shorter assessments that provide the most useful student-level information. The EOY assessment will be static to ensure parents and teachers have full access to all released test questions each school year.
  • Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities are required to be assessed with EOY assessments in the same grades/subjects and courses listed above but will not participate in BOY or MOY assessments.
  • In general, BOY assessments must be administered in September, MOY assessments in January and February, and EOY assessments in May. The writing section of the reading language arts (RLA) assessments, which includes open-ended questions, will be administered separately in April.
  • Assessment results must be provided to school systems within two business days after the testing window closes.

Grade 3 Testing Overlap

Under Texas law, Grade 3 students are subject to both the HB 2 foundational literacy and numeracy instrument requirements and the HB 8 SST requirements during BOY and MOY administration windows. To minimize duplicate testing, school systems administering SST during Grade 3 BOY and MOY windows may use that assessment to satisfy both HB 2 and HB 8 administration and reporting requirements.

An alternative SST provider may satisfy HB 2 requirements only if it is also approved as a foundational literacy instrument and/or a foundational numeracy instrument. For a list of providers that have been approved for both purposes, visit the Early Learning Assessment Requirements and Approved Instruments webpage.

School systems using an alternative SST provider that is not approved for foundational literacy and numeracy usage must administer separate approved foundational literacy and numeracy instruments and report those results to ºÚÁÏÍø×îÐÂÈë¿Ú.

For more information regarding implementation of foundational literacy and numeracy instruments under HB 2, visit the Early Learning Assessments website.