ACT Aspire Testing Week For Freshmen and Sophomore

South Campus students had ACT Aspire Testing the week of April 4th through April 8th, 2022. The testing days were scheduled for the sophomores Monday and Tuesday and freshmen Wednesday and Thursday. The testing days were split into two days for both grades to have one half of the alphabet, by last name, per grade come each day.

Thomas Stuber, South Campus counselor and Test Coordinator, said, “Aspire testing is going very well overall. There is a lot of preparation and planning that goes into this test administration.”

According to an email sent out by Sue Casetta, Director of Learning, and Stuber, the ACT Aspire assessment is required for freshmen and sophomores in Wisconsin. 

The ACT Aspire Assessment measures student’s progress towards college and career readiness in English, Reading, Writing, Math, and Science. The assessment has the capability to predict outcomes on the ACT assessment during junior year. 

According to Stuber, students benefit from feedback provided by the ACT Aspire test.

Prior to testing week, Casetta and Stuber encouraged students to prepare for the test as if they were taking the ACT. 

Students needed to check their testing location the week of March 28th through April 1st, 2022, to know which campus they were at for testing. Students were testing at both campuses to spread students out. 

Students were at school for testing from 7:20 am to 2:20 pm with the schedule included below:

7:20am: Students report to assigned classrooms.  

7:50am: READING Test (65 mins). 

9:10am:WRITING Test (40 mins)

10:05am: SCIENCE Test (60 mins).

11:05am: Dismiss to LUNCH. All students walk to South Campus for lunch.

11:45am: LUNCH ends.

12:00pm: Students report back to testing rooms.

12:05pm: MATH Test (75 mins).

1:35pm: ENGLISH Test (45 mins)

2:20pm: Dismiss. 

This schedule was set for freshmen and sophomores testing at both campuses to keep all students on the same schedule. The juniors and seniors still had classes in person during the week and had to go throughout their days with no bells. Both campuses disabled the bells for the testing days to give the freshmen and sophomores minimal distractions. 

Kyle Staus, a senior at Arrowhead, shared his thoughts on having no bells, saying, “They did not affect me as much. I also feel that they helped us out as it wasn’t a strict time because the teacher dismissed the class, so if a teacher needed a few quick seconds to wrap up instruction, they were able to do so without students tuning out.”

There were rules set in place that students needed to follow on testing days to help test administrators know that they weren’t cheating. Students were not allowed to have their phones or personal computers while they were testing. Students used the Arrowhead computers for the test instead of their own computers to make sure that the student wasn’t switching tabs or doing something other than testing. 

According to a staff email sent out by Casetta, Jeff Waters, Network Administrator, and Nate Schroeder, IT Operations Specialist, were sprinting to fix issues during testing on Monday. 

Students were only allowed to bring a pencil and calculator to use on the test. It was encouraged for students to bring something to read or non-tech homework to work on if finished early with testing. 

In the email, Stuber and Casetta said, “Arrowhead remains committed to preparing all of our students for their futures. These tests can serve as one of many indicators we can use to assess student readiness for college and career.” 

Parents had the choice to “opt out” their student from taking the ACT Aspire if they didn’t want their student to take it. All they had to do was email Stuber and Casetta with the subject line “Testing OPT OUT.” 

All South Campus students that were not in testing stayed home. Students had to do asynchronous learning on the days they were home during the week. 

Even though South Campus students weren’t in the building, the days were still required to meet the minimum hours the state requires schools to do and help students be out of school in June. 

All students were back on the regular schedule with bells on April 8th, 2022.

In the email to staff, Casetta said, “I wanted to send a quick note of gratitude. Aspire State testing is not our favorite, but the team work this week to help each other through it was another GREAT example of how awesome you ALL are!” Casetta went on in the email to share how much she appreciated multiple staff members involved in test administration and the proctors that provided constructive ways to improve testing throughout the week.