BEST & FAST in BCPS

Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking

& Florida's Assessment of Student Thinking

in Broward County Public Schools

On February 12, 2020 the Florida State Board of Education adopted new academic learning standards and graduation requirements for students. The State of Florida Department of Education provides detailed information on the adoption process and links to the new standards. 

As a consequence of this action, BCPS will:

• revise our curriculum to align content knowledge and skills acquisition sequencing to Florida's academic BEST standards;
• adopt new instructional materials in English Language Arts for the 2021-22 school-year;
• adopt new instructional materials in Mathematics for the 2022-23 school-year; 
• align college, career, life-readiness guidance and counseling to reflect new requirements and pathways;
• prepare students for new BEST aligned State assessments beginning in Spring 2023;
• update technical and curricular requirements for suppliers of instructional materials, supplemental supports, professional learning, and other procured materials and services;
• modify policies, protocols, and procedures which guide and support students and educators.

The following materials related to the BESTinBCPS implementation efforts are available at this time:

• Superintendent's Letter on BEST announcement (2020-02-02)
• SBBC Workshop Presentation on BESTinBCPS (2020-02-25)
• Calendar of BEST impact on students by graduation cohort and on teachers by grade level (2020-02-25)
• Summary of BESTinBCPS revision tasks 2020-2023 (2020-02-25)
• BEST Standards Implementation Update (2021-01-26)

BEST English Language Arts Parent Resources:

• PreK Parent Guide
• Kindergarten Parent Guide
• First Grade Parent Guide
• Second Grade Parent Guide
• Third Grade Parent Guide
• Fourth Grade Parent Guide
• Fifth Grade Parent Guide
• Sixth Grade Parent Guide
• Seventh Grade Parent Guide
• Eighth Grade Parent Guide

On September 14, 2021, the Florida Governor and Department of Education announced the intention to seek approval of legislation to replace the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) with a new assessment suite based on progress monitoring rather than summative examinations.  This new system is called Florida's Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST).  These progress monitoring assessments will be in the curriculum domains of English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics, be implemented in the 2022-23 school year for establishing baseline perfromance, and be utilized in the yet-to-be released revised accountability system in the 2023-24 school year.  More information on FAST can be found at www.fldoe.org/fast/.

Please follow announcements related to BCPS actions to implement Florida BEST standards & FAST progress monitoring assessments on Twitter at @BESTinBCPS. Please direct questions to the Office of Academics at cao at browardschools.com.