PSSA and Keystone Exam Information

April 13, 2026

Dear Parents/Guardians, 

As we move through the second half of the 2024-2025 School year, I would like to inform you that students in grades 3 thru 10 will be scheduled to take PSSA/Keystone Exams in April and May of 2025. 

The testing dates for the spring PSSA/Keystone Exams are listed below. Students will be tested as follows: 

  • PSSA: ELA (3rd thru 8th Grade Students)- April 21st, April 22nd, and April 23rd

  • PSSA: Math (3rd thru 8th Grade Students)- April 28th and April 29th

  • PSSA: Science (5th Grade)- May 5th and 6th

  • PSSA: Science (8th Grade)- April 30th

  • Keystone: Algebra 1 (Students in Algebra 1)- May 12th

  • Keystone: Literature (Students in Honors English 10)- May 12th

  • Keystone: Biology (Students in Biology/Honors Biology)- May 13th

 

The student groups listed above also include students who are enrolled in the Wyoming Area Cyber School. 

The PSSA/Keystone Exams are an important measure of your child’s academic progress and test results provide projections of their likely performance on the PSAT and SAT Exams. The PSSA/Keystone Exams are also an important measure for the district and assist in determining the effectiveness of our curriculum as well as provide student data to the Department of Education. 

Parents/guardians can help their children prepare for the test by ensuring that they attend school on a consistent basis throughout the school year, get plenty of sleep on the nights preceding the tests, eat a good breakfast on the day of the test, and encourage them to do their best on the test. 

Additional information about the PSSA/Keystone Exams is available through the links below. However, we need to inform parents that the graduation requirements related to the Keystone Exams have been changed based on Senate Bill 1095, signed into law October of 2018. Due to these new requirements related to new graduation requirements, some Secondary Center students who are not currently enrolled in the Keystone trigger courses will be scheduled to take one or more Keystone Exam during this upcoming testing window. For more information on those changes you can visit the PDE website.

If you have any specific questions regarding your child’s testing schedule and/or the testing, please contact your child’s guidance counselor as soon as possible. 

Sincerely, 

Jon William Pollard, Ed.D.

Superintendent

 

Resources for Students & Families

Understanding Statewide Assessments

PDE provides a host of resources that are publicly accessible, including testing administration information, assessment anchors and eligible content, cut scores, and more. You can access the main assessment pages below, as well as specific testing information for each of the subjects. Check out the links below and reach out to your School Assessment Coordinator or District Assessment Coordinator for more information!

PDE Preparing Students for Online Testing Handout - A great handout that gives an overview of the transition to online testing going into Spring 2026

Online Assessment Portal - Visit this site to check out the online Item Samplers, which are the most updated sample questions with answers, or to head on over to the Insight Training tab to see practice questions, online tutorials, and more. All students have opportunities to engage with these resources in school prior to testing to ensure students are comfortable with the assessment portal, technology, and question types.

PDE: ​​​​​​​​Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA)​​​​​​​​ - ELA, Mathematics, and Science (Elementary & Middle School)

PDE's PSSA Mathematics Resources (Grades 3-8) - Test design, calculator policy, item samplers, scoring guidelines, formula sheets

PDE's PSSA English/Language Arts Resources (Grades 3-8) - Test design, item samplers, Text-Dependent Analysis (TDA) scoring guidelines

PDE's PSSA Science Resources (Grades 5 & 8) - Test design, item samplers, scoring guidelines

PDE: Keystone Exams - Literature, Algebra, and Biology (High School)

Keystone Item Samplers

Keystone Scoring Guidelines