Testing Students at the Elementary/Middle Level
            
All general education students, students with disabilities in grades 3-8, or ungraded students of equivalent age must take:

• the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP) in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics, the elementary and middle level science and social studies assessments in the appropriate years; or
  
• if eligible, the New York State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA) in ELA, mathematics, science and social studies in the appropriate years; or
  
• an alternate assessment of another state if the student is placed outside of New York State and the CSE  has designated the student as eligible for the alternate assessment.

All students in these grades or equivalent ages who are also limited English proficient must take the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT) until they achieve proficiency on both the Listening and Speaking, and the Reading and Writing portions of the NYSESLAT.

Students who are in their first year of limited English proficient (LEP) instruction are not required to take the NYSTP in ELA. These students will be counted for accountability purposes as participating in an ELA assessment if they have valid scores on NYSESLAT Reading/Writing and NYSESLAT Speaking/Listening. Their scores will not be counted in the performance calculation for accountability.