Dear Parent/Guardian,

The Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) is a progress monitoring tool that will be administered three times per year to track your student’s progress in learning the Benchmarks of Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) Standards throughout this school year. The purpose of this letter is to inform you that your student will participate in the first administration (PM1) of the Grade 6, 7, or 8 Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) Reading assessment on September 13th and Mathematics assessment on September 15th. Your student’s results from PM1 are for informational purposes only, and your student’s school will provide you with information about how to access the results after testing is completed. Students enrolled in Algebra 1 or Geometry will not take this assessment. They will be assessed using District Quarterly assessments administered in October.

FAST assessments are computer-adaptive tests taken on student chromebooks. The questions get easier or more difficult depending on how the student responds, and each student will see different questions from a common item bank. Each test attempt (PM1, PM2, and PM3) will present 35–40 items that will cover the entire test “blueprint,” meaning students will encounter items representative of the standards within the subject or grade level. For more information on the test design, please visit https://www.fldoe.org/accountability/assessments/k-12-student-assessment/best/. If you or your student would like to interact with the online testing platform or review FAST Reading and mathematics sample items at home, sample test materials are available at https://flfast.org/families.html.

For more information about the FAST program, please visit the portal at FLFAST.org.

Thank you for supporting your student and encouraging him or her to do his or her best during this test administration.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Connie Dixon, M.Ed.

Principal