Educators, students, and families should be aware of how children are performing academically. Since the inception of schools, teachers have used assessments of various kinds to determine how well students are learning and determine if instruction has been successful or not. Wellspring recognizes that “assessment” is an ongoing process, which evaluates the on-going needs of students and the school.  

Students and parents are informed of current progress and they are provided with feedback, next step options, and extra help opportunities to assist them in mastering content standards. Having this monitoring and support approach is best because having students receive a differentiate and varied approach to their learning will ensure not only academic success but also achievement of the vision and mission of the school.

Although classroom assessments given by teachers predominantly affects students grade, independent assessments that evaluates academic progress provides valuable information the effectiveness on the academic programs and curricular resources of the school. Our assessments are used for both formative and summative purposes, whereby: 

Formative assessments help students and teachers to identify strengths, weaknesses, and ways to improve and enhance learning. It also focuses learning and instruction to standards and key concepts and improves student and school performance.

Summative assessments provide information to judge the extent to which a student has achieved the objectives relevant to the grade level standards in a theme of work over a unit of study, marking period, semester, or year. These are usually assessments provided by the New York State Education Department. They provide information on how well our schools are performing and improving compared to other students and schools across the state as well as evaluate the quality of our programs and provide recommendations for improvement. 

The Wellspring Schools uses the New York State grades 3-8 English language arts and mathematics assessments as well as the 9-12 regents examinations for end-of-year summative assessments.

The Wellspring Schools implements the Measures of Academic Progress (MAPs) as a formative assessment system for students in grades kindergarten through high school. This is an online computer adapted assessment that measures reading comprehension, reading fluency, mathematics, and language usage. This assessment assists in making informed curricular and instructional decisions. It also provides a source of data that measures growth for each student along with intervention plans for struggling students.

New students applying for admission to The Wellspring Schools take a shortened portion of the Measures of Academic Progress (MAPs) assessment to determine their reading and mathematical proficiency in comparison to their current grade level. This assessment is conducted by computer solely.