DATE:
Thursday, August 6, 2026
TO:
Elementary School Administrators
FROM:
Carolyn Gough, Administrator of Teaching and Learning
Ben Jameson, Director of Assessment, Research and Accountability
SUBJECT:
Elementary Fall Assessment Updates
Acadience Math
The state’s contract with Acadience Learning for the Acadience Math assessment expired on June 30, 2026. During the 2026 Legislative session, the Legislature chose not to allocate funding for the new Acadience Math contract, which would have begun on July 1, 2026. As a result, the Utah State Board of Education chose to suspend the requirement to administer Acadience Math to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Thus, for the 2026-27 school year, Jordan School District will not have access in ALO to administer Acadience Math benchmarks or progress monitoring. An early numeracy assessment is still required by law, pending Legislative appropriation. It is likely that there will be a state-mandated early numeracy assessment at some point after the 2026-27 school year.
Acadience Reading
The state’s contract with Acadience Learning for Acadience Reading is separate from their contract for Acadience Math. Thus, the state requirement to administer the Acadience Reading benchmarks in K-3 and the district requirement to administer the benchmarks in grades 4-6 remain in effect.
School administrators should have already received their Acadience Reading testing dates for the 2026-27 school year. Administrators may have noticed that there are separate testing dates for K-1 students and grades 2-3 students for some schools. The logistics for this change in testing will be addressed in the August principal meeting. Administrators may refer to this slide deck for more information.
This change in testing schedule comes as a result of some pilot testing done during the 2025-26 school year in which 23 schools participated. The results from the pilot were successful. For more information about the outcome data, please see this infographic.
For questions about any of these changes, please contact Ben Jameson in Assessment, Research & Accountability.
