The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will not cancel state-mandated standardized testing for the second year in a row.
STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) tests will get underway this week, nearly one year after the State of Texas canceled the exams at the outset of the pandemic in Spring 2020.
Watch NBC 5 free wherever you are
The twist for this school year is that passing the exams will have no bearing on whether students in fifth and eighth grades get to graduate and move on to middle school and high school, respectively.
Instead, the state will treat the tests, which will be administered in-person to students in grades three through 12, as a measuring stick of sorts to determine exactly where students are in their academic readiness, following a year that has resulted in a significant amount of lost instructional time.
Get top local stories delivered to you every morning with NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
In addition, the state will not assign a letter grade score of A to F to school districts upon the completion and scoring of the exams.
The initial exams given this week will be for Writing for students in grades four and seven.
