Staff Responsibilities and Recruitment
Staff Qualifications
Individuals must be high school graduates, at least 18 years old, speak English fluently, and should have experience administering standardized tests.
Staff should not be engaged in providing private PSAT-related assessment or SAT preparation conducted outside the auspices of their school or district for compensation.
Staff should also reflect the diversity of the students being tested and act in a fair, courteous, nondiscriminatory, and professional manner. They should possess the same level of integrity and maturity expected of a member of the school staff.
All testing staff must review and agree to the conditions for participating in the digital SAT Suite and complete training.
Testing staff will need a College Board professional account in order to use Test Day Toolkit. If you don't already have an account, follow the instructions for setting one up.
Conflict of Interest
Test coordinators and technology monitors may not serve as staff at the same testing school on the same day that a member of household or immediate family is testing. They may, however, serve as staff on days that the student is not testing.
Test coordinators and technology monitors may also serve as testing staff at a different location on the same day that a member of household or immediate family is testing elsewhere without violating the conflict of interest agreement.
Proctors must never have a member of household or immediate family member testing in their assigned room. They may proctor a different room while the student is testing in the same school on the same day.
Examples:
Coordinator and Tech Monitor | Student | Same Test Date | Conflict? |
---|---|---|---|
School A | School A | Yes | Yes |
School A | School A | No | No |
School A | School B | Yes | No |
School A | School B | No | No |
Failure to comply with the conflict of interest policies may result in cancellation of the student's score.
Recruitment
The test coordinator should begin recruiting testing staff as soon as they are provided with access to Test Day Toolkit. An email will be sent to the test coordinator with access.
If the Test Coordinator at your school has changed, follow these steps:
- Users with the SAT Suite Ordering role will log into SAT Suite Ordering and Registration.
- Click "View and Edit Order Details" option in the upper right corner of the ordering dashboard.
- This will take you to the order summary, where you can click to edit the contacts on the order in the lower left side of the summary page.
- Once you have updated the Test Coordinator, it will flow to Test Day Toolkit in 2 business days or sooner.
You might have students with accommodations who require testing in separate rooms. Test Day Toolkit will help the test coordinator identify the number of rooms that are needed to then determine the number of staff required.
New for fall 2023 digital: The test coordinator should recruit at least one technology monitor to staff the help room on test day. This role is required for digital testing.
Staff Ratios
Each school will have 1 test coordinator and 1 technology monitor.
Room Staff Ratios
One proctor will be assigned per room. Then add 1 room monitor for the following scenarios:
- Standard rooms with more than 34 students.
- Larger rooms with more than 50 students (1 room monitor for each additional 50 students).
- Extended time rooms with more than 20 students.
Example:
Room type | Number of students | Proctors needed | Room monitors needed |
---|---|---|---|
Standard time | 34 | 1 | 0 |
Standard time | 45 | 1 | 1 |
Standard time (large room) | 145 | 1 | 3 |
Extended time | 30 | 1 | 1 |
Hall Monitor Ratios
Test coordinators should plan to recruit at least one hall monitor for testing. If you have more than 5 testing rooms, add 1 hall monitor for every 5 rooms.
Example:
Number of rooms | Proctors | Hall Monitors | Test Coordinators |
---|---|---|---|
3 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
6 | 6 | 2 | 1 |
Special Scenarios
- If your school is testing fewer than 35 students AND they are all in one room:
- The test coordinator can serve as the hall monitor. No other hall monitor needs to be recruited in this case.
- If the test coordinator is also acting as the proctor, one hall monitor will need to be recruited to ensure that at least 2 staff members are covering testing.
- If there are fewer than 50 students testing at your school AND fewer than 5 testing rooms, the test coordinator may choose to serve as the hall monitor. No other hall monitor needs to be recruited in this scenario.
Examples of Staffing
School A:
- Your school is testing 100 grade 11 standard testers for the PSAT/NMSQT.
- You have 4 classrooms available, each with capacity for 25 students.
Therefore, you will require 7 staff:
- 1 test coordinator
- 1 technology monitor
- 4 proctors
- 1 hall monitor
School B:
- Your school is testing 100 grade 11 standard testers for the PSAT/NMSQT.
- You plan to test in one large room (e.g., cafeteria or gym).
Therefore, you will require 6 staff:
- 1 test coordinator
- 1 technology monitor
- 1 proctor
- 2 room monitors
- 1 hall monitor
Roles and Responsibilities
The purchaser is responsible for placing and managing orders using the "SAT Suite Ordering" role assigned by their organization's SSOR access manager. This should be someone authorized to buy a good or service on behalf of their school. District and schools should work together to determine who will place orders, grades to test, and when it is best to schedule the test date. Your district may manage this part of the process for you and other schools in the district.
Staff with this role can submit test taker data for test registration. You may want to assign this role to a staff member who is responsible for pulling test taker data from your institution's student information systems, and submitting that data into SSOR for test registration.
- Schools and Districts: The district or school—whichever purchased the tests—will have initial rights for submitting student data. Data must be submitted before school staff can view and validate student data and register students.
- Schools: If their district indicates in their order that schools will upload data, schools will upload student data associated with the district order. School data coordinators have the ability to submit a full replacement file if they find data uploaded by the school or district contains major errors. After this point, schools are responsible for fulfilling the SAT Suite Registration role described below.
- Districts: The district can only submit data for tests they have ordered where they indicate on the order that they will submit data for their schools. In some cases, this means that data will be submitted by both district and school. For example, if the district orders for 11th graders to test, and a school orders for 10th graders to test, the district will submit only 11th-grade data, and the school will have to submit 10th-grade data. Once a district has submitted data for an assessment, they cannot edit or submit a replacement file for their data.
After SSOR submission, data can only be updated by the "SAT Suite registration role(s)." This should be the test coordinator at the school and the SSD coordinator. The data coordinator should notify the staff assigned the registration role when data is submitted so they can validate and register students. Staff with this role view the test taker data submitted by data coordinators in an SSOR registration roster.
School staff with this role can view, validate, and update the data submitted to the SSOR registration roster. Schools are responsible for validating and making updates to data submitted by the district or their school. Schools should assign this role to test coordinators and/or SSD coordinators responsible for validating and registering students to test.
If your district has strict rules on management of registration data, district-level staff may be assigned to the SAT Suite registration role for each school to manage changes.
Important: This role needs to be someone who knows the students and can validate that their data, including any accommodations, is accurate. More than one person can be assigned to this role.
(See SAT Suite Registration Role above which the Test Coordinator also holds.) The Test Coordinator is responsible for validating the student data uploaded by their school and/or district's Data Coordinator for registration. Test Coordinators will be assigned the SAT Suite Registration role by their organization's SSOR Access Manager. Test coordinators will review the data uploaded and have the ability to view, validate, and upload records in SSOR. They will also work with their school's SSD Coordinator to ensure students that require accommodations have them appended to their record in SSOR. Once data and accommodations validation is complete, the Test Coordinator will register the student in SSOR. Once registered, the student will be available in Test Day Toolkit within 2 business days, and maybe sooner.
The Test Coordinator is expected to be at the school to supervise all activities related to the test administration.
Additional responsibilities include:
- Recruit and train staff.
- Plan efficient use of facilities.
- Use Test Day Toolkit to assign staff to rooms and print sign-in tickets for students.
- Supervise all activities of the test administration.
- Safeguard student registration data.
- Supervise admission of students.
- Handle emergencies and disruptions.
- Work with school or district technology staff to prepare for testing.
If your school is testing fewer than 35 students in the same room, the Test Coordinator can take on 1 additional role by also serving as the proctor, monitor, or technology monitor.
(See SAT Suite Registration Role above which the SSD Coordinator also holds.) The SSD Coordinator is responsible for supporting students who will be testing with accommodations.
Responsibilities include:
- Help the test coordinator validate student accommodations in SSOR.
- Request student accommodations with College Board's Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) no later than 7 weeks before test day.
- Work with the test coordinator to designate rooms required for testing students with accommodations.
- Ensure paper practice materials are ordered and distributed to students approved for a paper accommodation.
- Confirm that student accommodations in SSD Online are appearing in Test Day Toolkit rosters.
- Work with proctors to ensure student accommodations are administered correctly.
- Support the proctor recording answers on behalf of students testing with paper supports.
School or district technology staff help test coordinators choose testing rooms with good internet speed, install Bluebook on school-managed devices, if applicable, and complete other technical readiness tasks. See Technology Tasks for more detail.
Each school needs an on-site technology monitor to staff the help room. This is a new role for digital testing. They don't need technical expertise—we provide tips for troubleshooting problems students may have while downloading Bluebook, signing in to their College Board accounts, starting the test, and submitting responses.
Proctors are responsible for conducting a secure, valid administration. They're accountable for everyone in the testing room and everything that takes place in their room.
They must follow all testing regulations and refrain from engaging in any tasks unrelated to testing. Proctors should be current faculty members or other professional staff members of your institution.
Responsibilities include:
- Complete training and read the Proctor Test Day Guide before test day.
- Before test day, sign in to Test Day Toolkit with a College Board professional account. On test day, use it to take attendance, start testing, and monitor the test.
- Distribute a sign-in ticket to each student.
- Follow seating requirements when assigning and directing students to seats in the testing room.
- Actively monitor students throughout testing.
- Immediately report any disruptions to the test coordinator.
- Refer students that require technical support to the help room.
- Note irregularities.
Hall and room monitors assist with test administration duties. Monitors don't administer the test, but they will have access to Test Day Toolkit. They can be a current professional or a member of administrative, secretarial, or clerical staff.
Responsibilities include:
- Help set up the school for testing.
- Direct students to their assigned rooms and to the restrooms.
- Answer students' questions.
- Monitor the testing room, hallways, and restrooms for student misconduct such as using prohibited devices or sharing information.
- Ensure that students in the school that are not participating in testing don't interrupt or distract testing rooms and students during their breaks.
- Serve as liaison between testing rooms, the technology monitor, and the test coordinator.