Florida RFP 2018-48: Use of ACT and SAT in Lieu of Statewide Assessments
ASG and Partners Final Report – Florida RFP 2018-48 106
the assessment for individual students. The IEP team is the final decision maker for most FSA
accommodations.
For both the ACT and the SAT, an accommodations request must be submitted to the test
vendor and the vendor either approves or does not approve the request. Both the ACT and SAT
ask for student disability category as part of the request process. The educators noted that the
disability categories listed in ACT and SAT materials did not align with the federal disability
categories used by the Florida Department of Education. The ACT drop-down menu made it
relatively easy to identify which accommodations might be requested for students with visual
impairment (VI), but it was more difficult to determine the options from a drop-down menu for
other types of disabilities because there was a need to guess which disability category to select.
For requests for accommodations not listed in the ACT policy (i.e., special or unique
accommodations), educators thought that ACT did not provide sufficient information about the
request process for these accommodations.
For some students who had previously approved accommodations, SAT requires that multiple
types of documentation be included with a request each year, including frequent updates of a
current medical diagnosis, a current IEP, documents indicating current use of the
accommodation during instruction, and some teacher input about whether the accommodation
request aligned with what was in the student’s IEP. For many students with disabilities, once a
student’s request for accommodations for the SAT is approved, the approval remains valid
throughout their high school career. College Board provided detailed information about how
special or unique accommodations could be requested for the SAT.
The second difference between the Florida request process, and the ACT and SAT request
processes, was the amount of time required for accommodations decisions. Educator panel
members noted that it took less time to select accommodations for the FSA than for the ACT
and SAT. Even though the ACT request process was considered relatively easy, educators noted
that it could be a time-consuming process to make separate applications for each student
because there was a need to identify the accommodations for each student using an online tool,
and the process needs to be repeated for each content area (i.e., reading, writing, math). This
potentially would be very time-consuming, especially in large school districts. For the SAT,
teachers found it “interesting” that for each of the disability categories, evaluations were
required by people with professional credentials who often would not be school staff. Again,
this process was a concern because it could be a very time-consuming process. In comparison,
FSA was more streamlined and automatic; FSA accommodations are provided by the school
and documented in the testing paperwork but no 504 or IEP plan is ever uploaded into the FSA
Portal Tests Information Distribution Center (TIDE). The IEP or 504 plan team is the final
decision maker for which accommodations students with disabilities receive on the FSA.
English Learners (ELs). Math educator panel members noted that for the FSA, local teams make
accommodations decisions for ELs. An application was not required for each student, and only
a parent needed to indicate yes/no on a consent letter. In comparison to the FSA, for the ACT
and SAT, an application needs to be made for each student. Educators noted that the ACT and
SAT request process for ELs seemed relatively simple. Still, although the College Board
provided criteria to be used when making requests, there was little information on how student