115C-83.5. Developmental screening and kindergarten entry assessment.

(a) 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.

(b) The State Board of Education shall ensure that every student entering kindergarten shall complete a kindergarten entry assessment within 60 days of enrollment.

(c) The developmental screening instrument may be composed of subsections of the kindergarten entry assessment.

(d) 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.

(e) 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.

(f) The results of the developmental screening and the kindergarten entry assessment shall be used to inform the following:

(1) The status of children's learning at kindergarten entry.

(2) Instruction of each child.

(3) Efforts to reduce the achievement gap at kindergarten entry.

(4) Continuous improvement of the early childhood system.