Dear Families of Fort Atkinson High School,
On Tuesday, October 4th, students in grades 9-11 will be participating in the Practice ACT. The Practice ACT helps us measure what learning targets our students have currently mastered to be successful in college AND career readiness skills. The Information we receive from this standardized screener helps us to provide direct, specific instruction for each individual student throughout the course of the year. In other words, we need to measure where the students currently are, so we can get them better prepared for where they are going. Data from these assessments will be used to inform us of our students’ strengths and weaknesses and to help guide instruction.
In addition, this assessment will prepare students for the feel and rigor of state required assessments; the ACT for Juniors will be taken March 7th, and the PreACT Secure assessment for Freshmen and Sophomores will be taken in early April.
The Practice ACT is approximately 2 hours and 55 minutes long and consists of 4 tests in English (45min), Math (60 min), Reading (35 min) and Science (35 min). There are about 15 minutes of pre-administration activities. The questions on the exam will be questions from previous ACTs that have been reformulated, so the difficulty level of the test is on par with the regular ACT. Another benefit of the test is to help students get a strong sense of how they would score on the real ACT and how much more they need to prepare before taking it. The remainder of the day we will run an abbreviated schedule with 41 min long classes. You can find a schedule for the day attached below.
Students will be assigned a classroom to take their Practice ACT so we can offer small group settings. Lists of these assignments will be posted in the commons and outside of classrooms prior to the day of testing. All teachers will be proctoring tests on this day. Staff will also be available for students that need alternate locations for accommodations and/or additional supports as outlined in their IEP or 504.
NOTE: Seniors are not required to attend school this day, and have received a separate email communication about their Senior Explore Day for October 4th.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Mr. Rousseau via email at rousseaua@fortschools.org or 920-563-7811 ext. 1107
