U.S. Dept. of Education approves SD’s statewide assessment waiver

The U.S. Department of Education has informally approved the South Dakota Department of Education’s waiver of statewide assessment requirements, accountability, and school identification requirements for the 2019-20 school year.

Through this waiver, South Dakota will not need to administer its statewide assessments to students, to make annual accountability determinations, to identify new schools for support and improvement, or to provide certain data on state and local report cards for the 2019-20 school year.

State Secretary of Education Dr. Ben Jones said that with all that schools in the state are facing related to COVID-19 concerns, he said he’s glad that at least the statewide assessment can be taken off of their plates to help ease the burden.