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accepted by the federal government for many months.  However, each school has its own priority deadline.  If you do not submit your FAFSA by the stated deadline, the amount of money the school has left to allocate may be limited.  Most of the deadlines for the South Dakota schools are March 1.  If you have questions, please feel free to call me at (605) 397-8381.
• TESTING INFORMATION - Jodi Sternhagen
• Write To Learn
• The Writing Assessment is now an online formative assessment in which students address writing prompts and receive feedback.  This program, Write To Learn, provides a better measure of student progress and provides immediate feedback for students.  Grades 5, 7, and 10 test yearly. 
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• ACT Testing
• Groton is a test site for the ACT in April and October.   The school felt it was a nice option for students to be able to test in a familiar location and to not have to travel a long distance.  The next ACT tests are scheduled for April 13 and June 8.  On Wednesday, December 12th, all juniors were able to take a practice ACT test during school and then look at the test preparation section of Career Cruising called Method Test Prep.  The computerized program will generate a study plan designed to increase student ACT scores based on the results from short test sections.  Hopefully, the juniors have been working on this personalized study plan. 
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• Dakota STEP Testing
• Dakota STEP testing for students in grades 3-8 and 11 will be held in early April.  The Dakota State Test of Educational Progress is South Dakota's annual statewide assessment of student progress, administered each spring.  Public school districts are required to administer the Dakota STEP.  The Dakota STEP is the assessment system for accountability used in South Dakota as required by the No Child Left Behind Act and South Dakota state law. 
• The assessment provides critical feedback to educators, students, and parents regarding students' academic achievement and mastery of South Dakota's academic content standards.  Dakota STEP results are not used in making grade promotion decisions or high school graduation decisions.   The Dakota STEP assessment is composed of a battery of multiple-choice subtests.  Questions are based on state content standards in reading, mathematics, and science. 
• The Dakota STEP was developed to improve the accountability of the state's educational system.  It also serves as one benchmark to measure student achieve

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