Assessment Definitions

Overview

An Assessment Definition tells TKG Analytics what a given assessment is, when it was given, and how it fits your accountability picture. Every score that comes into the platform is matched to one, so the definition is what turns a pile of imported rows into "the Second Nine Weeks benchmark" or "the state summative."

Each definition has a type:

• Benchmark: an interim assessment your district gives during the year.
• District: a district-built assessment that lives outside the benchmark sequence. In practice this is a midterm (see District Midterms below).
• State: the state summative for the year.

Definitions are scoped to a single school year, so each year carries its own set. Your current year's Benchmark and State definitions are set up for you when onboarding completes and again each time a rollover is approved. District definitions are never set up for you.

Assessment Types and Per-Year Limits

Every assessment a district configures fits one of three types, and TKG Analytics accepts a fixed number of each per school year. This 4 / 4 / 1 shape is the full set of layouts the platform accepts.

So in a single year a district can define at most four Benchmark, four District, and one State assessment. Because definitions are year-scoped, each year carries its own 4 / 4 / 1 set, and a change to one year never affects another.

District assessments are the one type that must use your custom cut scores - see District assessments require custom cut scores.

District Midterms

A District definition is how your district adds a midterm to TKG Analytics: your own assessment, given outside the benchmark sequence. A midterm is scored differently from a benchmark or the state test:

• It carries only percent-correct data, with no vendor performance level or scale score.
• It is scored against your account's Midterm Ranges rather than your usual calculation method. See Midterm Ranges and Custom Cut Scores.
• Because of that, your Midterm Ranges must be set before the midterm is imported. Without them, every row derives a blank performance level and is dropped.

Where It Lives

• The Assessment Definitions tile on your district page links to the full list for the current year.
• The list opens in nine-week-period order, but you set the order yourself by dragging definitions. Your arrangement sticks, and it is the order used everywhere assessments are listed.
• Selecting a definition opens its tracker, where you can see the impacts and scores that rolled up under it.
• The tracker has a Score Type filter offering the types that apply to your grade span, such as MAAP, MAAP SPED, K-2, and Feeder, plus MAAP-A and the EL types once you have students flagged for them. It offers a type because your district or school could have those scores, not because this particular assessment holds any, so a type can come back empty. Changing it also narrows the definition list to the assessments holding scores of that type, and it clears any subject, grade, and period you had selected.
• Banked scores appear as two separate types, because a banked score belongs to two periods. Banked Forward lists the banked scores your students sat during this assessment's period, which are not counting toward it. The ones sat in the Spring MAAP window go on to count in a later year. Banked Applied lists the banked scores from earlier periods that this assessment's results are counting. A score never appears under both. See Banked Forward and Banked Applied for worked examples.
• Six selections replace the impact panel with a note instead of a score: the four Banked types, Feeder, and Missing MAAP SLAIF. Those scores are held out of impact data by accountability rule, not because anything is missing from your file.
• The narrower types, such as MAAP Gifted, MAAP-A, and the K-2 subtypes, do not carry an impact of their own. They show the impact of the family they belong to, MAAP, MAAP EL, or K-2, next to the scores you filtered to, and the panel says which family it is showing. MAAP EL SPED belongs to MAAP EL; the rest of the MAAP subtypes belong to MAAP, and the K-2 subtypes to K-2. This is what the score trackers do as well.
• A CSV and PDF export of the list are available from the index. Both are named for the school year they cover, so last year's file and this year's do not arrive under the same name.

How To Use It

District admins can manage definitions:

1. Open the Assessment Definitions list from your district page.
2. Click New Assessment Definition and fill in the Assessment Timeframe, Name, and Short Name. All three are required. The school year and the assessment type are set for you: the only type you can create is District, and the year is always the current one.
3. Reorder the definitions into the sequence your year runs (see Reordering definitions below).
4. Edit a definition to correct its Name or Short Name. The year, timeframe, and type are fixed once the definition exists.

Once your definition exists, upload the assessment's scores through the District Assessment uploader. See Uploading Your District Assessment Files.

Reordering definitions

The list is arranged by hand, not auto-sorted, so you set it to match how your year runs.

1. Open the Assessment Definitions list. Each row has a drag handle, the up-and-down arrow (↕), at its left edge.
2. Click and hold the handle, drag the row to its spot in the sequence, and release.
3. The new order saves on its own. There is no Save button to press.

Only district admins can reorder, and only within the year shown on the page. Other roles see the list in the saved order but do not get a drag handle.

A definition can only be deleted while it is a District type and nothing has been built on it: no scores uploaded against it, and no impacts, goals, or item analysis. MAAP priors that attached to it on their own do not count - those are borrowed from another definition and go away with it. Once your own data has rolled up under a definition, it is locked in place so reporting stays consistent.

What Data Feeds It

You do not import Assessment Definitions. You create them, and then your uploaded scores attach to them:

• When you upload an assessment file, the file is tied to the definition you selected at upload time.
• As scores process, each one is linked to its definition, which is how the tracker and impacts know which period they belong to.

This is why the definition has to exist before the matching scores are processed.

How State (MAAP) Scores Attach to Multiple Definitions

Most scores attach to the single definition you chose at upload. State (MAAP) scores work differently. A MAAP result is a prior - it feeds more than one assessment - so when MAAP scores import, TKG Analytics attaches each one automatically to every definition it counts for:

• Its tested home. The score is marked as the tested result on that year's State definition.
• The rest of the current year. For districts on a semester schedule, a mid-year MAAP is attached as a prior to the benchmark and midterm definitions for the periods still to come - the later-quarter definitions that have not been scored yet.
• Future years (banking). A banked high school MAAP - grade-9 Algebra I, Biology I, or English II, or compacted grade-8 Algebra I - is attached as a prior to the benchmark and midterm definitions in the year it banks forward to: next year for grade 9, two years out for grade 8. See Banked Scores.

Each link records whether the score is the tested result or a prior, and whether it counts toward the district and teacher calculations - so one MAAP score can be a teacher's current-year result and a district prior for a later benchmark at the same time.

A few rules keep this dependable:

• Missing targets are created. MAAP files often arrive before the year they feed is set up. If a State or benchmark definition the score should attach to does not exist yet, TKG Analytics creates it on the spot so the prior is never lost - a banked score will stand up next year's (and, for compacted grade 8, the following year's) benchmark definitions. District (midterm) definitions are not auto-created - you add those yourself - but the order you do it in does not matter: a midterm you add after the MAAP file has already imported picks up the priors it qualifies for as soon as you create it.
• Re-importing is safe. The attachment is idempotent - re-processing MAAP files updates the existing links rather than duplicating them.
• It runs no matter how MAAP arrives. Whether MAAP comes in through the state file or a per-definition upload, the same attachment happens.

Common Questions

• Why can't I delete a definition? Only District-type definitions can be removed, and only while nothing has been built on them: no scores uploaded against them, and no impacts, goals, or item analysis. MAAP priors that attached on their own do not block deletion, so a midterm you just added is still removable. If your own data has already rolled up under it, the definition stays.
• Why did next year's benchmark definitions appear on their own? A banked MAAP score (grade-9, or compacted grade-8) attaches forward to the year it counts in, and TKG Analytics creates that year's benchmark definitions if they do not exist yet so the score has somewhere to land. See How State (MAAP) Scores Attach to Multiple Definitions.
• Why is the order important? The order you set here is reused everywhere assessments are listed: the upload picker, the Score Tracker, Item Analysis, and Impact Goals. Keeping it in the sequence your year runs means every list reads top to bottom the same way.
• Why isn't my new order showing up where I expected? Reordering is saved per year, so first confirm you are viewing the same year you reordered - a 2025 change does not affect 2024. The new sequence saves on its own; refresh the page if a list still shows the old order. Only district admins can change the order, so other roles always see the saved sequence with no drag handle.
• Why don't I see a New button, just an "Add district midterms" card? District midterms are an add-on, enabled for the districts that opted in. Open a Helpdesk Ticket if you are interested, or if you believe your district gives midterms and should already have them.

Support

• Helpdesk Ticket: Helpdesk Ticket
• Website: https://tkganalytics.org