MASSENA — New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) say something was amiss with this year’s Regents examinations, but state Education Department (SED) officials say that’s not the case.

NYSUT officials said they’ve heard concerns from the field about the 2026 tests.

“From what we’ve heard, teachers prepared students according to known curriculum standards, students studied the required material, and parents supported their children, all following what they believed were established guidelines,” they said in a social media post. “Despite these proper preparations, it seems the exam content may not have aligned with the approved curriculum that educators were directed to teach and students were expected to learn.”

They’re looking for input from schools and have set up a survey page at nysut.cc/regentsconcerns26. They’re asking for the individual’s name, email address, school district, and what best describes them — teacher who administered the Regents exams, student who took Regents exams, parent of a student who took the Regents exams, and other.

They’re also asking which exam(s) had problems — Algebra II, Biology, Chemistry, Earth and Space, English Language Arts or Physics — and ask individuals to describe their experience with the Regents tests.

“NYSUT is working on behalf of our members and their students to understand what happened and work with the state Education Department on corrective action for the future. Your input is crucial as we work with the state Education Department to address these concerns and protect the interests of students and educators across New York state,” they said.

Massena Central School Superintendent Ronald P. Burke said he had also heard concerns.

“I share the concerns regarding the new science Regents examinations. The results on these examinations do not seem to accurately reflect the preparation that our teachers and students have taken to meet the new standards,” he said. “I understand that aligning a new assessment with new learning standards is a challenging task. However, the magnitude of this potential misalignment appears to be greater than we would expect.”

SED spokesman JP O’Hare, however, said there were no issues with the examinations, but rather with the instruction. He said questions on the Regents exams are always written, reviewed, and selected for inclusion by New York teachers.

“Through the New York State Education Department’s extensive, industry-standard test development processes, carried out in collaboration with hundreds of NYS teachers, we are confident that the Regents Exams are well-aligned with the state’s learning standards,” he said in an email.

“What we are hearing this year is concern that, in some schools, students were not taught all of the content that those standards require. That is an implementation issue, not an exam issue. Schools and districts must ensure that instruction reflects the current standards so every student has a fair opportunity to demonstrate what they know and can do,” O’Hare said.

He said SED has released “extensive information and materials” to support teachers and students in preparing for the exams since the new standards were adopted in 2016 and 2017

“The Department has released more information and materials for these Regents Exams than for any other assessment in the past 15 years,” he said.

O’Hare said SED does not require or recommend that schools include Regents exam scores in students’ final averages.

“That decision is made locally by each district,” he said.

With Regents exams wrapping up, he said they would post the entire test publicly in the next few weeks as they always do with every Regents exam.

“In addition, we include an alignment chart with the scoring materials, which shows the learning standard measured by each question on the test. Teachers already have access to this as they are scoring the exams, and we always post that for the public as well,“ O’Hare said.