Frequently Asked Questions

All exams produced by Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES are aligned to the NYSED Regents LOTE Curriculum and maintain a scaffolded approach to content. This was done to replicate the format and thoroughness of the former Regents LOTE Examination in the testing of the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Culture is embedded in our examination via the reading selections, listening narratives, and authentic realia. In recent years, we have begun to incorporate more questions involving the interpretive mode stemming from the ACTFL standards: interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational.

Teachers who have been selected to write questions are experienced teachers who currently teach the level for which they are writing. These selected teachers are well known for their professional integrity and language proficiency.

Examinations are compiled from a pool of items that have been created by Wold Language Team Leaders. Team Leaders are retired teachers and experts in the field. Team Leaders have no vested interest in the results of the examinations.

Complete data analysis has been done on all previous administrations of our exams. This data is used to identify negative question discrimination, faulty answer distractors, and general question difficulty. Each exam question is reviewed by a panel of veteran language teachers and heritage speakers to assess validity, reliability, and authenticity.

Please visit our Exam Information and Updates page to learn more.

Please refer to the Terms of Administration document found on the Important Documents page. Any school that wishes to order our examinations must agree to comply with these terms.

Checkpoint A Examinations are typically administered to students in middle school. If a student, enrolled in middle school, has passed two years of study in a World Language course (or one year of study in an advanced World Language course) AND the student passes a Checkpoint A examination, the student will have earned a high school course credit in World Languages. This is the minimum requirement in World Languages for students to earn a New York State diploma.

Checkpoint B Examinations are typically administered to students after completing a total of three (3) units of study in the target language. Students who have earned these units of study and who have passed a Checkpoint B examination will have met the World Languages requirement for an advanced regents diploma. 

Students may take a Pathways-approved examination independent of its associated coursework if approved by the building principal, however, in this scenario the examination can only be used to meet examination requirements for graduation. In this scenario, our examination can not be used as a traditional Checkpoint B examination for the purpose of meeting criteria to earn an advanced regents diploma.

Please refer to the LOTE FAQ document released on November 2018 by the NYS OBEWL for further information.

Yes.

On March 28, 2018 NYSED announced the approval of the Oneida-Herkimer-Madison Checkpoint B examinations in Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish for use in the Multiple Pathways to Graduation program. 

In March, 2019 we received a letter from NYSED notifying us that our American Sign Language Checkpoint B examination was approved for use in the Multiple Pathways to Graduation program as well.

A complete list of the LOTE examinations approved by NYSED for use in the Multiple Pathways to Graduation program can be found here. All Checkpoint B examinations created by Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES are approved for this purpose.

According to the NYSED web page for Multiple Pathways:

The New York State Board of Regents approved regulations establishing multiple, comparably rigorous assessment pathways to graduation for all students.  Multiple pathways recognize the importance of engaging students in rigorous and relevant academic programs. The recently approved regulations recognize students’ interests in the Arts, Biliteracy, Career/Technical Education, Humanities and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) by allowing an approved pathway assessment to meet the students’ graduation requirements.

Found on the Frequently Asked Questions page of the New York State Education Department’s Multiple Pathways web page, 4+1 Pathways is further described:

Students who first enter grade nine in September 2011 and thereafter or who are otherwise eligible to graduate in June 2015 or thereafter, have the following options available in order to meet the assessment requirements leading to a Regents or Local diploma:

⬛ Pass four (4) required Regents examinations or Department Approved Alternatives as follows: ELA Regents exam, 1 math Regents exam, 1 science Regents exam, 1 social studies Regents exam.

⬛ Plus any one (1) of the following options:

     ⬜ [other options removed]

     ⬜ Pass a Department approved pathway assessment in a Language other than English (LOTE)

Yes.

Exam orders should be submitted as soon as possible so that we have enough time to print and ship the exams to your school district. Soft order deadlines are in place as follows:

January examinations: October 15
June examinations: February 15

Orders received after the deadlines stated above will be processed based on our ability to fulfill them. 

The OHM BOCES Checkpoint Examinations are developed for a target audience of native English-speaking students who are studying a second language. As such, all directions that appear in the Teacher Examination Booklet and Student Examination Booklet are written in English. Similarly, the scenarios for Part 1: Conversation/Roleplay, the help text for Part 2: Expressive on the ASL exams only, and the tasks in Part 4: Writing are written in English. All passages and stimuli that appear in the examination are written in the target language. Additionally, some parts of the examination include questions and answer choices written in the target language. 

Given the intended target audience for our examinations, and with no ability to guarantee that translations performed locally would be accurate, fair, or equitably performed:

OHM BOCES permits local translation only of the directions associated with the examination. Translation from the target language is not permitted for any passages, questions, or any choices. IEP and 504 plans written to require the use of an oral/signed translator supersede this policy.

Please visit our Released Exams page to find a sample examination for each language at both the Checkpoint A and Checkpoint B levels.

Each examination from January 2016 onward will also be released as a Computer Based Assessment in the Buzz Learning Management System. Schools that order our examinations will receive access to preview these released examinations in their CBT format. An additional subscription to the Buzzz LMS is required to administer these examinations to students. Please contact Greg Smith at gsmith@oneida-boces.org for more information on subscriptions to Buzz.

Buzz is arguably the most powerful Learning Management System currently available for use in an educational setting. For our World Languages Examinations, we are currently using Buzz to provide teachers and administrators access to all of the materials associated with our examinations in a centralized location.

Most importantly, for World Languages exams, Buzz will be the ONLY location in which schools can access:

1) digital versions of our Part 1: Conversation/Roleplay tasks, 2) practice conversation/roleplay tasks, 3) released examinations in CBT format, 4) audio files of the listening comprehension portion of our exams, and 5) the scoring key for our examinations each January and June.

For more information on Buzz, please visit this section of our website.

Our examinations will be administered each January and June. A brand new examination is created for each language each time it is administered. Questions are never recycled from previous examinations except for Part 1: Conversation/Roleplay.

Dates of administration for Parts 2-4 (Parts 3-4 for ASL) may now be selected locally by each school district. Restrictions apply. Please read our Terms of Administration carefully.

Yes and no.

For school districts that intend to use our exams as a local final examination only: OHM BOCES does not require specific coursework to prepare students for our examinations, however, we do recommend that students be enrolled in coursework that prepares them for success on our examinations.

For school districts that intend to use our exams as a proficiency exam (Checkpoint A) and/or to qualify their students to earn a New York State diploma with advanced designation (Checkpoint B): Our examinations are available to any student who wishes to take them provided that the school district adheres to our Terms of Administration and student has met the minimum course requirements stated in the Commissioner’s regulations 100.5(b). 

For school districts that intend to use the exam to qualify their students for the 4+1 Pathways to Graduation program: At this time, NYSED's Frequently Asked Questions on the Multiple Pathways document states:

4. What courses must a student complete in order to meet the pathway requirements? 
The pathway regulations address assessment requirements only. Generally, with the exception of credit by exam outlined in Commissioner’s regulations 100.5(d), a student must complete the course designed to culminate in the assessment they wish to take. For example, if the student wishes to use Geometry for the +It 1 pathway assessment, s/he must complete the Geometry course before being allowed into the examination.

It is of note that school districts can opt to use the checkpoint examinations of OHM BOCES for more than one purpose. For example, it is most common for schools to use the OHM BOCES checkpoint B examination to meet criteria for an advanced regents diploma and as a 4+1 Pathways examination.

Yes. It is possible to carry over student's Conversation/Roleplay scores from previous administrations of the Checkpoint B exam only, however, it may only be done under the following conditions:

1. The Conversation/Roleplay tasks that were previously administered were created by Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES*; and

2. The administration of the Conversation / Role Play tasks occurred as part of the immediate previous examination offered by Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES.

*Scenarios:
May I transfer student scores from June to January? Yes
May I transfer student scores from June to June? No

All parts of our Checkpoint A/B examinations will be scored locally / in-district by teachers certified in the assessed target language. The teachers must follow the scoring criteria found in each examination's respective manuals for administration and scoring found on our Important Documents page.

Because our Checkpoint B examinations are approved by NYSED for use as a Pathways assessment, NYSED requires that the teacher of record associated with students who take our exams not be allowed to score any parts of the examination that receive a subjective score (e.g. Part 1: Conversation/Roleplay and Part 4: Writing). This policy applies only to our Checkpoint B examinations. 

NYSED has offered the following suggestions for meeting this scoring criterion: 1) Assign someone other than the student's teacher to administer and simultaneously score the Conversation / Role Play session, 2) Have the student's teacher administer the Conversation / Role Play session while a disinterested teacher is in the room and simultaneously scores the student's responses, and 3) Have the student's teacher administer the Conversation/Roleplay session and record the student's responses. The audio/video recording would subsequently be scored by a disinterested teacher. Please note that if this option is chosen, the audio/video recordings must be destroyed once the student responses have been scored.

Note: All examinations may be recalled by Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES for the purpose of data analysis after local scoring has taken place.

Yes and no.

The Manuals for Administering and Scoring for each of our examinations are available on our Important Documents page.

The Scoring Key for the multiple choice-based parts of our examinations will be made available only on the Buzz Learning Management System. Only the school administrator who ordered the examinations will be able to access the scoring key. Scoring Key access will be restricted to the week(s) in which the examination is eligible for administration.

Note: For specific instructions that explain how you can access secure documents, such as the scoring key, please see the Instructions to Access Secure Documents found on our Important Documents page.

Only school administration may order examinations. Please visit our Order Exams page for further instruction.

The cost of the exam is:

• $8.10 per student per exam
• $80 processing fee per order
• The cost of shipping the exams to your school district (calculated based on volume and distance)
   

Available: $4.00 per set of Conversation/Roleplay cards plus shipping costs 

Note: Each iteration of our examinations will have unique Conversation/Roleplay tasks. These tasks are also available digitally at no charge via Buzz. Directions that explain how to access the Conversation/Roleplay tasks on Buzz will be sent to teachers after an order form is submitted by your school district. These tasks must be kept secure in perpetuity, however, they may be used for practice with students only after the examination for which they are intended has been administered. 

Yes.

All orders should be submitted via our online ordering system by November 1 for examinations administered in January and by March 1 for June examinations each year. Examinations can be ordered for January and/or June starting each year in September, however, separate orders must be submitted if a school wishes to order for both iterations of the examinations.

Orders received after the deadlines written above may be fulfilled based on our ability to process them in a timely manner. Please submit your orders as soon as possible. Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES reserves the right to void orders beyond our capacity.

Schools who are a component district of a BOCES will make payment via a cross-contract of the two BOCES. To initiate the process for making payment, the school that ordered examinations will be sent a quote (via email) along with a cross-contract that has already been filled out. The quote will need to be signed by the person who submitted the order for the examinations. The quote and cross-contract will then need to be delivered to the school superintendent for his/her signature. These documents then need to be sent to the school's local BOCES superintendent for his/her signature. The signed documents will be returned to Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES for processing of payment. The school's local BOCES will pay for the examinations and then bill the school directly for the charges.

Private/Charter/Big 5 schools will be invoiced for their examination purchases. Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES will work closely with your business office to meet your local processes and requirements after the invoice has been delivered via email.

Exam orders will be fulfilled based on the order in which they are submitted. Expect to receive a shipment of the Conversation / Roleplay cards approximately 1-3 weeks prior to November 15 for January examinations and/or 1-3 weeks prior to April 1 for June examinations. Likewise, Student and Teacher Examination Booklets will arrive at your school 1-3 weeks before the respective administration date of our examinations.

Note: If your school has special delivery requirements and/or timelines, please indicate as such on the online order form. We will do our best to accommodate such requests.

Each school that orders exams will receive a single shipment of the Conversation / Roleplay cards (if ordered) and a single shipment of Student Examinations booklets, Teacher Examination booklets, and Student Answer Sheets/Booklets. These shipments will be delivered to a central location that is supplied to us on the order form submitted by the school. If multiple school buildings within a single school district need to take our examinations, the school district is responsible for local delivery of the examinations. Alternatively, individual school buildings within a district may submit an order, however, the $80 processing fee and shipping costs will apply to each school in this case.

Note: The security of our examinations is of the utmost importance. ConversationRolePlay cards, Student Examination Booklets, and Teacher Examination Booklets must remain secure until the date and time of their administration.

After your school district submits an online order form, each person indicated as a teacher of record will receive an email with instructions that explain how they can access the Part 1: Conversation / Role Play tasks via the Buzz Learning Management System (LMS). Other secure materials, such as the scoring key, will become available in Buzz at the appropriate time.

Important Note: Each school building has a unique URL to access Buzz. The aforementioned email will contain that URL. Alternatively, you can look-up your school building's URL for Buzz from our Buzz Look-up page. Your username will be the email address that is provided to us on the order form. Use the "Forgot Password" button on the Buzz login page to generate your initial password.