What Mountain West Assessment Calendars Have in Common

Quick answer: The names differ and the shape does not. Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming all test English language arts and mathematics annually in grades 3 through 8, all put science at a handful of grades instead, and all hand high school to a different instrument. Plan the science year around that gap.

What is the same across all six states?

The grades 3 through 8 window. ISAT in Idaho, MontCAS in Montana, the Smarter Balanced tests in Nevada, NM-MSSA in New Mexico, RISE in Utah and WY-TOPP in Wyoming are six labels for one recurring event: a spring block of reading and mathematics testing that removes your students, your room or both. Science teachers are rarely the reason for the disruption and always subject to it.

Short, self-contained work is what survives those weeks. Lever Law & Pulley Systems Worksheets for Grades 7–9 runs levers and pulley systems as a set of grades 7–9 worksheets, which can be picked up and put down between testing sessions without losing a thread. A unit that depends on continuity from Monday to Thursday is the wrong thing to start in April, however good it is.

Where do the six calendars part company?

At high school, and at science. Nevada requires the ACT of all eleventh graders, Utah reports through Utah Aspire Plus and related ACT measures, and New Mexico uses end-of-course requirements with an SAT-based graduation pathway, while Idaho, Montana and Wyoming keep a state test at grade 10. Science appears at selected grades only, such as Montana's science testing at grades 4, 8 and 10.

Montana also carries a content obligation the other five do not. Indian Education for All is a constitutional and statutory requirement covering all schools, all grades and all subjects, and a 2026 settlement now requires the Office of Public Instruction to track district-level accountability for it. Ecosystem Management | Biodiversity, Sustainability & Ecological Systems fits that terrain honestly, since ecosystem management, biodiversity and restoration are exactly where local land and local knowledge belong in a science course.

What does a four-day week do to a science unit?

It removes the recovery day. More than fifty Idaho districts run four-day calendars, and rural four-day weeks are widespread across Wyoming too, which means a lost Monday is a fifth of the teaching week rather than a fifth of a fifth. Lab-heavy sequences that assume five contact days quietly stop working, and the pacing guide written elsewhere does not transfer.

Build in three-lesson chunks with a natural stopping point at the end of each. Setup and cleanup cost the same whether a period is fifty minutes or ninety, so fewer, longer investigations beat more, shorter ones on a compressed week. The regional collections on Mountain West Teaching Resources (ID, MT, NV, NM, UT, WY) separate quick tasks from multi-week units, which is the first thing to check before planning a term.

How do you plan when the assessment system itself keeps changing?

Assume churn and design around it. Wyoming worked through an assessment-vendor transition in 2026 that affected how WY-TOPP is administered, and a 2026 Utah legislative push to let some charter schools opt out of RISE failed in the House. State testing arrangements move, so the parts of your course that depend on them should be small.

What holds steady is the content and the evidence you keep. Chemistry Complete – Ready-to-Use Curriculum for Middle School Chemistry is a complete middle-school chemistry curriculum, which gives a small department a fixed spine while the testing arrangements around it get renamed. Idaho colleagues comparing notes across the state line can start with the resources on Idaho Teaching Resources & Worksheets (Grades K–12), where the same material is grouped by grade band.

Frequently asked questions

Are these resources endorsed by any of these six state agencies?

No. They are independent teaching resources, not affiliated with or endorsed by any education agency, ministry or exam authority, including the departments and boards named here. Nothing carries official approval in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah or Wyoming. Mapping a unit to your own state's standards is a decision you make locally.

Which state's standards are these written to?

None of them specifically. The units are built around science content and tasks rather than one state's numbering, which is why teachers in six different systems can use the same material. Expect to spend an hour matching a unit to your standards document, and rather less than building the unit itself from scratch.

What is included, and what if a unit does not fit our calendar?

Each purchase downloads immediately and contains printable worksheets, projects and slides you can resequence for a four-day week or a block schedule. For anything about returns, see the store's refund policy. The previews show length and reading level, which is usually enough to judge fit.

Related reading

• Long Drives, Small Schools: Planning in the Mountain West
• Teaching Two Preps a Day in a Mountain West High School
• Mountain West Teaching Resources (ID, MT, NV, NM, UT, WY)