March 19, 2014 (Sacramento):  Students across California are getting ready to participate in a trial run of the state’s new online assessment program which will eventually replace paper-and-pencil testing.

The new Smarter Balanced Assessments will be field tested in SCUSD schools beginning April 7. To help parents learn about the new tests, SCUSD is sponsoring a series of parent workshops that focus on the assessments and the learning standards to which they are tied.

Workshops are scheduled for 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 25, at Pacific Elementary (6201 41st St.), Rosa Parks K-8 School (2250 68th Ave.) and West Campus High School (5022 58th St.). See below for more dates and locations.

Smarter Balanced Assessments are aligned to the Common Core State Standards, which define what students should know and be able to do at every grade level.

Designed to better prepare students for college and careers, Common Core Standards focus on critical thinking, problem solving and analytic reading. The Common Core State Standards in math and English were adopted in California in 2010 and will replace the outgoing California Content Standards in 2014-15. They are generally more rigorous and demanding than the outgoing standards and require changes to the way teachers instruct students in math and English language arts.

The workshops will provide comparisons of the paper-and-pencil test students used to take each spring with the new Common Core-aligned online assessments.

Other workshops are scheduled for (all are from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.):

Tuesday, April 8 at Harkness Elementary, John Still K-8 School, Kennedy High School, Golden Empire Elementary, Kit Carson Middle School and Rosemont High School
Tuesday, April 29 at Nicholas Elementary, Will C. Wood Middle School, Hiram Johnson Middle School, Matsuyama Elementary, California Middle School and Luther Burbank High School