North Carolina § 115C-83 - 5. Developmental screening and kindergarten entry assessment.

§ 115C-83. 5. Developmental screening and kindergarten entry assessment.

The State Board of Education shall ensure that every student entering kindergarten shall be administered a developmental screening of early language, literacy, and math skills within 30 days of enrollment. The State Board of Education shall ensure that every student entering kindergarten shall complete a kindergarten entry assessment within 60 days of enrollment. The developmental screening instrument may be composed of subsections of the kindergarten entry assessment. The kindergarten entry assessment shall (i) address the five essential domains of school readiness: language and literacy development, cognition and general knowledge, approaches toward learning, physical well-being and motor development, and social and emotional development and (ii) yield both qualitative and quantitative data in each of these domains. Data obtained through administration of the kindergarten entry assessment shall be used to populate relevant fields in a longitudinal data base. The language and literacy component of the kindergarten entry assessment may be used as a formative and diagnostic reading assessment as provided in G.S. 115C-83.6. The kindergarten entry assessment shall be (i) administered at the classroom level in all local school administrative units; (ii) aligned to North Carolina's early learning and development standards and to the standard course of study; and (iii) reliable, valid, and appropriate for use with all children, including those with disabilities and those who are English language learners. The results of the developmental screening and the kindergarten entry assessment shall be used to inform the following: The status of children's learning at kindergarten entry. Instruction of each child. Efforts to reduce the achievement gap at kindergarten entry. Continuous improvement of the early childhood system. History (2012-142, s. 7A.1(b); 2014-5, s. 4.) Editor's Note. - Session Laws 2012-142, s. 7A.1(b), enacted this section as G.S. 115C-83.1 E. It has been renumbered as this section at the direction of the Revisor of Statutes. Session Laws 2013-363, s. 3.9, provides: "Notwithstanding Section 7A.1(i) of S.L. 2012-142 or any other provision of law to the contrary, the developmental screening and kindergarten entry assessment required by G.S. 115C-83.5 shall be administered beginning with the 2014-2015 school year in at least fifty percent (50%) of local school administrative units with statewide administration implemented no later than the 2015-2016 school year." Session Laws 2014-5 s. 10, provides: "The State Board of Education shall implement the developmental screening instrument as provided in G.S. 115C-83.5 in each school in a local school administrative unit enrolling kindergarten students, and according to the approved time line for the administration of the Kindergarten Entry Assessment as provided under Section 3.9 of S.L. 2013-363. Additional components of the Kindergarten Entry Assessment shall be fully implemented in each school in a local school administrative unit enrolling kindergarten students beginning with the 2016-2017 school year." Effect of Amendments. - Session Laws 2014-5, s. 4, effective June 10, 2014, rewrote subsection (d).