ATTENTION: The BCSD Student, Teacher, and Parent Climate Surveys window opened on Monday March 3rd and will close Friday March 21st. All students in grades 3-12 and all teachers, librarians, guidance counselors, ROTC instructors, career specialists, and speech therapists are expected to participate in the survey. All parents are encouraged to participate. Parents and guardians are able to access the survey in the PowerSchool Parent Portal.

The Office of Testing and Accountability provides multi-faceted support to Berkeley County School District as a whole and to its 48 schools individually. Inherent in each facet of this department’s responsibility is an expectation for legal compliance, ethical behavior, accuracy, and unbiased reporting.

As the name implies, support is provided by the Office of Testing and Accountability for execution of various national, state, and local assessments. In particular, this office is responsible for the execution of state-mandated testing programs, district achievement and aptitude tests for placement of academically gifted students, and federally-required assessment of English learners.

In its role as the “accountability arm” of the district, the Office of Testing and Accountability is responsible for the collection, analyses, dissemination and reporting of data used for federal and state accountability.

Assessments are used for many purposes and are considered an integral part of teaching and learning. When results are used as intended, they provide information about whether teachers are teaching what they think they are teaching, whether students are learning what they should be learning, the pace at which learning is occurring, and specific areas of challenge or exceptionality for students. Additionally, assessments inform grading and placement decisions, and often inform educators about deficiencies in the curriculum.

A variety of assessments (tests) are used to formatively and summatively assess student progress in Berkeley County School District, many of which are state-mandated. The Office of Testing and Accountability coordinates the logistics, training and communication of centralized formative and summative assessments with the following goals in mind:

• To provide accurate and timely information regarding testing purposes, procedures, and results;

• To manage and ensure legal compliance in federal, state and district testing initiatives;

• To provide guidance on the appropriate use of assessment results for accountability and school improvement;

• To support the progression of learning;

• To provide data for decision-making; and

• To develop, monitor and evaluate the district’s Pre-K through Grade 12 assessment strategy.