At Wednesday night's Old Rochester Regional School Committee meeting, Superintendent Doug White reported that both MCAS and the newer PARCC assessments will be part of the equation going forward.

Tri-town schools piloted PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) last year with the thought that, if the state adopted the new test, then students would already have experience with it. Schools who adopted PARCC last year did so with the understanding that the test results would not affect their standing.

On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Departments of Elementary and Secondary Education voted 8-3 to transition to a "next generation" MCAS, which will incorporate new science standards, while also using elements of PARCC. The new MCAS test will be administered for the first time in 2017.

A press release from the Department of Education states that those school districts that administered the PARCC last spring will continue to do so in 2016 and "will be held harmless" again for any fall in test scores.

Current high school students at ORR will continue with MCAS.

By 2019, the statewide goal is to have all schools taking exams online rather than written. That's an area where ORR is already ahead of the curve.

"We're already there," White said.