SDL · Sources · NY School Leadership Prep

Start with this Everything the test maker publishes about School District Leader is free. The test design and assessment framework, the complete preparation guide, sample selected-response items with annotated answer keys tagged to objectives, all four written assignments with directions, official strong responses and the evaluations explaining why they scored — every one of those is a public PDF on the NYSTCE site at no cost. There is no paid NYSTCE study guide for this field and no official practice test. Work the free official set first: on 103/104 it is the only material that is definitionally correct about the exam.

cost of the entire official SDL preparation set

102 pp.

framework + prep guide + both sample-question PDFs

official full-length SDL practice tests

2008

Official NYSTCE · Fields 103 & 104Primary — use these firstthe whole official set

Preparation materials page, School District LeaderThe one page that links every official SDL document. If you bookmark a single URL, bookmark this one. Note what is not on it: there is no practice-test link and no paid study guide — see the practice-test note below.
Test Design and Assessment Framework, 103/104 (PDF, 15 pp., © 2008 NYSED)The blueprint, and the only document that defines what is scored. It gives the test design for both parts — 60 selected-response items and 2 written assignments per part, selected-response worth 50% and written worth 50% — and then the full text of all sixteen objectives (0001–0008 on each part) with the bulleted examples underneath each one. Those bullets are the item writers’ source list — read them as a checklist, not as prose. If a study resource disagrees with this PDF about item counts, weightings or objective content, the study resource is wrong. Currency note: the © 2008 date is not a defect — SDL was never rewritten the way School Building Leader was (107/108 → 109/110), so this is the live blueprint. It is a defect only when a file borrows the framework’s era of law and policy along with its objectives.
Preparation Guide — complete (PDF, 47 pp.)The whole guide in one file: the “Preparing for the Test” front matter plus both parts’ sample questions and written assignments. Download this if you want everything offline in one document. The front matter is short and worth the ten minutes: it is where the test maker states how the selected-response and written sections combine, and how written responses are read.
Part One (103) — Sample Questions and Written Assignments (PDF, 18 pp.)The highest-value eighteen pages in SDL preparation. Contains: sample selected-response items; an annotated answer key that tags every item to its objective and explains the key; the on-screen directions for the written section; the Work Product assignment (the short task, 150–300 words) and the Case Study assignment (the long task, 300–600 words) with their full stimulus material; an official strong response to each; and an evaluation of each response written against the scoring criteria. Read the evaluations line by line — they are the closest thing to the scorers explaining themselves, and the most skipped document in the set.
Part Two (104) — Sample Questions and Written Assignments (PDF, 22 pp.)Same architecture for Part Two, and four pages longer. The two assignments here are Management Problem Solving (the short task) and Educational Program Analysis (the long task). Watch the ordering: on 104 the short assignment comes out of Subarea II (resources and compliance) and the long one out of Subarea I (the district educational program), which is the reverse of the pattern candidates expect after working Part One.
Scoring criteria — inside both sample-question PDFsNot a separate download, and easy to miss. SDL written responses are scored on three criteria — PURPOSE (fulfill the charge of the assignment), APPLICATION OF CONTENT (accurately and effectively apply the relevant knowledge and skills) and SUPPORT (support the response with appropriate examples and/or sound reasoning) — on a four-point scale: 4 thorough command, 3 general command, 2 partial command, 1 little or no command, plus unscorable and blank. If a study file describes SDL scoring in any other vocabulary, it has borrowed School Building Leader’s rubric, which is a different instrument entirely.
School District Leader test pageFees, passing score and the window link, in the program’s own words. Current as fetched August 2026: Part One $169 · Part Two $168 · Both Parts $337, passing score 220 on each part scored separately, and availability stated as “By appointment during testing windows.” Fees move; confirm before you register.
Testing windows and score report datesThe table the SDL test page links to as “View testing windows.” Score reports post “beginning at 10:00 p.m. on the score report date indicated.” Two cautions. SDL windows are not School Building Leader windows — score report dates are identical across the two but the windows differ (SDL’s are shorter and open later), so substituting SBL dates will cost you a sitting. And the table carries no heading naming which tests it governs; the only thing tying it to SDL is the 103 test page’s direct link to it. Unambiguous, but check it against the test page before planning around it.
Retake policy · Withdrawal and refund · Changing your registrationSDL is not on the 60-day retake list, so the 30-day wait applies and you reregister for every retake. Registration is valid one year from issue and expires with no refund if unused and not withdrawn. Rescheduling is free up to 24 hours before the appointment; cancelling loses your seat. The 30-day rule rarely binds in practice, because the gap between SDL windows is longer anyway. Nothing official addresses retaking inside a single window — assume you cannot until the program tells you otherwise.
Test policiesIdentification requirements, what you may bring, what happens to your session if you break a rule, and the nondisclosure agreement you sign on screen. Read it once, well before test day.
Alternative testing arrangementsThe request process for candidates with documented disabilities or health-related needs, and for nursing mothers. Requests are made before you schedule and documentation takes time — start it in the window before the one you intend to sit.
Computer-based testing tutorialsThe interface you will actually use: flagging and review, the behaviour of the writing box, the on-screen timer. Fifteen minutes of your appointment covers the tutorial and the nondisclosure agreement — do it at home and spend that time settling instead. The prep materials page also links a Pearson Professional Centers tour showing check-in and the testing room.
How to Read Your Score Report (PDF) · Understanding Candidate Score Reports (PDF)What the scaled score and the reported performance information mean. Read them before you sit, not after a disappointing result — on a test offered in a handful of windows a year, a retake decision made in the dark costs months.
Master test listWorth one look for what it does not say. As of August 2026 SDL appears as “School District Leader: 103/104” with no “through [date]” qualifier and no replacement code, while several other fields carry National Evaluation Series successor codes; SDL is also not among the four NYSTCE Flex fields. Translation: 103/104 is not being replaced, and material written for it is not about to be obsoleted by a format change.
Study guides indexSDL appears on this index, but its link resolves back to the preparation materials page above — the free Preparation Guide PDF is the study guide. There is no separate NYSTCE-sold SDL study guide to hunt for.

There is no official SDL practice test — and here is exactly how strong that claim is The School District Leader preparation materials page carries no practice-test link, and the phrase “Practice Test” does not appear on it at all. NYSTCE does sell online practice tests for other fields — the practice test page states that fees “start at $11.00” with “120-day access to activated test” — but that page does not enumerate which fields are covered, so it cannot independently confirm SDL’s exclusion. Be clear about the evidence: this rests on the SDL prep page’s silence, not on an affirmative statement that no SDL practice test exists. It is strongly supported and it is what the site shows today; if you find a live SDL practice-test listing, trust the listing over this page and send it in. Either way, your full-length rehearsal has to be self-built out of the official sample items and the out-of-state guides below — and anyone selling you a “real” SDL practice test is not reselling something official.

NYSED policy and certificationWhat the exam is forcertification, waivers, standards

Certification exam score waiver last updated June 18, 2026The single most consequential page here for anyone who lands just under the cut. Two conditions, both required: your score falls within 0.5 standard error of measurement of the passing score on a required NYSTCE test, and your overall GPA is 3.5 or higher on a conferred bachelor’s or master’s degree — an incomplete program does not count. For School District Leader the waiver thresholds are 212 on Part One (103) and 211 on Part Two (104) against the 220 passing score. Every attempt can be checked against the threshold if you have sat a part more than once. You need an active certification application on file in TEACH before requesting the waiver, and transcripts older than five years should be re-sent. Educating All Students is not waiver-eligible. The program’s announcement of the process is dated 2/26/25.
Administrator certificate · New Administrator Certificate overviewOn January 13, 2025 the Board of Regents approved amendments establishing a new Administrator certificate and a Superintendent Extension. The dates that matter, in NYSED’s words: institutions could begin registering the new programs January 29, 2025; the Department “will no longer register programs leading to the current School Building Leader and School District Leader certification on or after February 1, 2025”; all registered SBL and SDL programs “will be discontinued on or after September 1, 2030”; and individuals “must apply and meet all requirements for the Initial SBL and/or Professional SDL certificates by January 1, 2031.” The Regents item behind the action is also public.
Administrator Certificate Q&A (PDF)Read this one for a fact that reframes the whole phase-out: applicants for the Administrator certificate must “achieve a passing score on both parts of the SBL AND SDL exams,” or use the Individual Evaluation Pathway. The SDL certificate is being phased out; the SDL exam is not. 103/104 becomes a requirement for the new certificate, which is consistent with SDL’s absence from the NES transition list. It also confirms that an existing SBL holder reaches the Administrator certificate by passing the SDL exam, and reaches the Superintendent Extension through the Administrator certificate rather than directly from an SBL. An honest gap: the Q&A answers the “do I have to convert?” question only for SBL, and NYSED’s no-conversion-required sentence names “SBL, SAS, or SDA” — it does not name SDL. The strong implication is that a valid SDL remains valid, but no NYSED sentence says so in those words. Do not repeat that as settled; ask the Office of Teaching Initiatives.
Administrator Certificate Decision Tree (PDF)A one-page flowchart for working out which certificate applies to you and by which route — the fastest way to answer “do I still need the SDL, or should I apply under the new structure?” before spending $337 on both parts.
School district leadership — experience requirements last updated October 19, 2020The experience side of SDL certification: “three years of full-time, classroom teaching, pupil personnel service, or educational leadership experience,” with acceptable district-level titles listed (District Superintendent, Superintendent, and non-civil-service Deputy, Associate and Assistant Superintendent). It also spells out what makes a position administrative in nature: hiring and retention, pedagogical supervision and evaluation, budget preparation and implementation, curriculum development, and non-membership in the teachers’ bargaining unit. Note the page’s own update date — October 19, 2020, well before the 2025 Regents action. Accurate on experience, stale on the certificate landscape; verify degree and coursework requirements through TEACH and the Search Certification Requirements tool.
Teaching and educational leadership standards (hub) · PSEL — NYS Version (PDF)The Board of Regents adopted the 2015 Professional Standards for Educational Leaders in 2017; NYSED notes the NYS version “includes small but significant changes from the National PSEL standards focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” and from 2025–2026 principal practice rubrics in evaluation plans must align to it. Read the alignment claim carefully: the SDL framework contains no statement of alignment to any external standards set — not PSEL, not ISLLC. The scored blueprint is the 2008 objectives themselves. Learn the PSEL vocabulary because it is the language of current New York practice and rubrics; do not study it as the test specification, and be sceptical of anything advertising “PSEL-aligned SDL preparation.” No official crosswalk between the 2008 framework and PSEL was found on NYSED or NYSTCE.
PSEL national version, 2015 (PDF) · ISLLC 2008 (PDF) · Indicators of Excellent Leadership (fillable PDF)All three are hosted by NYSED. The ISLLC 2008 file is here for one reason: it is the standards set that circulating SDL material most often presents as current. It is not — it is the predecessor. Keep it to recognise the vocabulary, not to memorise it. The Indicators tool is a PSEL self-assessment and doubles as a vocabulary list for written responses.

New York law, finance and operations104 Subarea II lives herebookmark, don’t memorise

Education Law (EDN) — full text, NY SenateThe statute itself, free, current and linkable section by section — the reference to reach for whenever a study file makes a legal claim you want to check. Sections a district leader uses constantly: §1709 (powers and duties of boards of education), §1950 (BOCES), §2023-a (the tax levy limit), §3020-a (disciplinary procedures for tenured staff), §2510 (abolition of positions and preferred eligible lists), §310 (appeals to the Commissioner) and §2-d (student data privacy). The Senate site hosts the consolidated laws; where a figure or deadline is decision-critical, confirm with counsel and the current session laws.
Commissioner’s Regulations — 8 NYCRRThe regulations, not the statute, are where most of the operational detail an SDL item tests actually lives: Part 100 (curriculum and instruction, graduation requirements), Part 200 (students with disabilities), Part 155 (facilities), Part 80 (certification). A caution about links: NYSED publishes some Parts as HTML pages and hosts others only in the compiled New York Codes, Rules and Regulations, and the URLs move — so use the anchors that are stable rather than a deep path that may already be dead. Individual Part 200 sections are published in readable HTML, for example §200.4 (referral, evaluation, IEP and placement), §201.4 (manifestation determinations) and §201.7 (suspensions and removals). For anything proposed or newly adopted, the Board of Regents site carries the meeting items, which show amendments months before secondary sources catch up.
Office of the State Comptroller — local government publicationsThe best free plain-English library on New York district operations and finance, written by the office that audits districts. Two that pay for themselves: the claims auditing process and auditing roles, responsibilities and resources — between them they settle who does what across the claims auditor, the internal auditor, the external auditor and the audit committee, which is the exact distinction 104 Objective 0006 items turn on. The wider library covers reserve funds, fund balance, capital planning, procurement and multiyear financial planning.
Office of the State Comptroller — local government hub, including fiscal stress monitoringOSC’s Fiscal Stress Monitoring System scores districts on financial and environmental indicators and publishes the designations annually. Two uses: it is the vocabulary of district fiscal health — fund balance ratios, operating deficits, cash position, short-term borrowing — which is exactly the language a strong Management Problem Solving response uses; and you can pull a real district’s report and read what an outside monitor says about it, which beats any invented scenario. The monitoring pages sit under this hub — navigate from here rather than a bookmarked deep link, because OSC restructures its paths.
NYSED State Aid Office · State Aid to Schools: A Primer (PDF) · Education FinanceWhere district revenue comes from and how the formulas behave. The Primer is the best plain-English explanation of New York school funding in print, free and updated annually: the aid categories, how Foundation Aid works, the expense-driven aids, the budget calendar. If your finance preparation is one document, make it this one. Anything predating the 2011 tax levy limit is describing a system that no longer operates.
Dignity for All Students Act (information guide, PDF)Signed 2010, effective July 1, 2012, amended effective July 1, 2013. At district level the testable content is structural: the Dignity Act Coordinator in every school, the reporting chain from staff to principal to superintendent, material incident reporting to NYSED, and the policy and training obligations the board must adopt. You are expected to know what the district owes the state here, not merely that bullying is bad.
McKinney-Vento in New York · NYS-TEACHSStudents in temporary housing: immediate enrollment, enrollment while documents are gathered, school-of-origin choice, transportation, comparable services, and a designated local liaison. NYS-TEACHS runs the state helpline under contract to NYSED and its district-facing guidance is more practical than the statute.
Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework (PDF)NYSED’s four principles, in the Department’s own words: Welcoming and Affirming Environment · High Expectations and Rigorous Instruction · Inclusive Curriculum and Assessment · Ongoing Professional Learning. It carries distinct guidance for district leaders, which is the part most candidates skip. Nothing published in 2008 could name it, so it is not in the SDL framework — but it is the current New York language for the equity dimension of 104 Objectives 0001–0003, and using it accurately reads as current practice.
Education Law §2-d — student data privacyThe New York statute that goes well beyond FERPA: the Parents’ Bill of Rights for Data Privacy and Security, obligations that flow down to every third-party contractor touching student data, the district Data Protection Officer, and breach notification duties. Vendor contracts, one-to-one device programs and the annual software inventory all run through it. NYSED’s privacy guidance pages have moved more than once — reach the statute above and search nysed.gov for current guidance rather than trusting an old bookmark.
ESSA accountability in New York · Title I, Part A fact sheetAccountability designations, the indicators that produce them, and what a district owes a school identified for support. This is what 104 Objective 0008 — supervising compliance with federal, state and local mandates — actually turns on. Note the era problem in inherited files: anything written before December 2015 is describing No Child Left Behind, and anything treating Adequate Yearly Progress as operative is describing a system replaced a decade ago.

Free out-of-state analogues worth working

You will exhaust the four official SDL PDFs quickly, and then official practice is gone. The largest free supply of professionally written superintendent items with published rationales — and of scored constructed-response exemplars — is the other state programs run by the same publisher, Evaluation Systems, a Pearson business, which also builds the NYSTCE. Same item architecture, same four-point scoring vocabulary, same house style in the distractors. What does not transfer is state law: read them for reasoning and structure, never for statute.

Guide	Currency	What it is best for
Illinois · Field 225 Superintendent	Current · © 2017	The best of them. Sample selected-response items across objectives 0001–0011, each with the correct response and a full official rationale, plus constructed-response assignments and the complete four-point scoring-scale descriptions.
New Hampshire · NES 809 and 811 Superintendent Subtests I and II	Current	Printable sample questions, written-assignment directions and the written-assignment scoring scale — the easiest set to run as timed practice on paper.
Oklahoma · CEOE Field 248 Superintendent	Current	The closest public analogue to the SDL case study, and the only one that publishes both a strong and a weak sample response with rationales for each.
Ohio · OAE Field 015 Educational Leadership	Current	Four distinct constructed-response assignment types, each with directions and a sample strong response. The richest free source of scored writing exemplars anywhere.
Texas · TExES 195 Superintendent	Current	A rationale for every option, not just the key, and “select TWO” items that force you to read stems properly.
Arizona AEPA Field 80 · Oklahoma CEOE 048 · Illinois ICTS 187	Retired codes	Real Evaluation Systems material, so the item style is in the family — but © 2005, © 2007 and © 2006 respectively. Format familiarity only. See the warning below.

The five current guides, and how to work each oneFree · official in their own states5 programs

Illinois · Field 225: Superintendent — Illinois Licensure Testing System, il.nesinc.comWork this one first. The © 2017 official study guide carries sample multiple-choice items across objectives 0001–0011, each with the correct response and a full rationale written in the same register as NYSTCE’s own, plus constructed-response assignments and the complete four-point scoring-scale descriptions. The objective map lines up with SDL unusually well: shared vision and continuous improvement against 103-0002; leading change and data-driven planning against 103-0005 and 103-0007; the instructional-program and staff-development objectives against 104-0001 through 104-0005; the organisational, fiscal and legal objectives against 104-0006 through 104-0008. Its Illinois statutory references — what the local board has sole authority to do, for instance — are Illinois law and must not be carried into a New York response. Reach it from the ILTS home page and open the Field 225 preparation materials from the test list; the guide is what this page vouches for, not any particular deep URL for it.
New Hampshire · NES Superintendent Subtest I (809) and Subtest II (811)Structurally the nearest cousin to SDL’s two-part design: each subtest is 50 selected-response questions plus 2 open-response assignments, 15 minutes of tutorial and nondisclosure agreement, 3 hours 30 minutes of testing, no reference materials. Subtest I splits 50/50 between visionary leadership, collaboration and educational contexts (0001–0002) and a culture of achievement and instructional leadership (0003–0004) — 103 territory. Subtest II splits 50/50 between organisational and human resource management (0005–0006) and fiscal and operational management with legal and ethical guidelines (0007–0008) — 104 territory. Treating 809 as Part One practice and 811 as Part Two practice is the obvious move. The pages carry printable sample questions, an overview and competency printout, the written-assignment directions and the written-assignment scoring scale — the set to print and work under a timer, away from a screen.
Oklahoma · CEOE Field 248: Superintendent — selected response · constructed responseThe closest publicly available analogue to the SDL case-study format. The assignment hands you a scenario plus exhibits on a district’s instructional programs, personnel, demographics, operations and climate, and asks you to identify a significant strength; identify a significant concern and its implications for strategic planning; describe in detail a strategy to address the concern; and explain how the strength supports that strategy. Target length roughly 300–600 words with evidence cited from the exhibits — the same shape and length band as SDL’s long assignments. Oklahoma’s four scoring dimensions (Purpose, Subject Matter Knowledge, Support, Rationale) are not SDL’s three, so score yourself against PURPOSE / APPLICATION OF CONTENT / SUPPORT instead. What makes the page worth an evening is that it publishes both a strong and a weak sample response with rationales — reading a weak response you can diagnose is the fastest way to stop writing one.
Ohio · OAE Field 015: Educational Leadership — selected response · constructed responseThe richest free source of scored writing exemplars, because Ohio publishes four distinct constructed-response assignment types rather than one: a Work Product assignment (visionary and inclusive leadership), a Student Differences assignment (student learning), a Management Problem Solving assignment (resource management and educational law), and a Case Study written assignment. Two of those are SDL’s own task names and a third maps onto Educational Program Analysis. Each is published with directions and a sample strong response, and the page closes with the performance characteristics and the scoring scale; selected-response competencies 0001–0010 run from shared vision through legal dimensions. Method that works: draft all four under timed conditions, then compare your structure — not your content — against the published strong responses.
Texas · TExES Superintendent (195) — sample selected-response itemsSection 4 of the Texas preparation manual, and unusually generous: each item is labelled with the competency it measures and every answer option gets a rationale, not just the key. That is the most useful feature in any free guide, because on SDL your losses come from plausible distractors rather than unknown content, and reading why three options fail trains the discrimination that matters. Ten competencies across three domains: leadership of the educational community (ethics, shared vision, family and community, the political/social/economic/legal context, work with the board), instructional leadership (curriculum design, learning culture, staff evaluation and development), and administrative leadership (budget and finance, facilities and operations, organisational decision-making). Texas also mixes in “select TWO” items, which drills stem-reading discipline. Sample topics travel well: bond-election stakeholder strategy, what a usable mission statement must contain, assessing district climate, district-wide dropout reduction.

Retired codes — item style only Three superintendent guides circulate widely in SDL folders and all three are for retired test codes. Arizona AEPA Field 80 (© 2005) is the oldest document you are likely to be handed — AEPA has been replaced by Arizona’s current program and Field 80 no longer exists. Oklahoma CEOE Field 048 (© 2007) was superseded by Field 248, which is listed above and is the one to use. Illinois ICTS Field 187 (© 2006) was superseded by ILTS Field 225 — also listed above, also better in every respect. All three predate ESSA (2015), PSEL (2015), and the merger that produced today’s Pearson Evaluation Systems. They are genuine test-publisher material, so the item architecture is in the family and the stems read the way real stems read — that is the whole of their value. Every legal, funding and accountability reference in them is stale, and a candidate who studies accountability out of a 2005 guide will write about Adequate Yearly Progress on a 2026 exam. Format familiarity only; take no content from them.

Books

Two titles come up in nearly every SDL conversation. Neither is official, neither is required, and both are worth borrowing before buying — check a university library first, and both turn up used.

Practitioner-written

Preparing for Educational Leadership, 3rd edition

Kenneth Forman & Jeffrey Soloff · Pearson Learning Solutions, 2018 · 376 pp. · ISBN 978-1323818275

The more current of the two and the one most often assigned in New York preparation programs. Pearson Learning Solutions is a publishing arm — that is not the same as being published by the testing programme, and the book carries no official standing for 103/104. Read it for the leadership content and New York context; check anything format-related against the framework PDF, which is free and definitive.

Dated — 2013

NYSTCE School District Leader (103/104) Test Secrets Study Guide

NYSTCE Exam Secrets Test Prep Team · Mometrix Media, 2013 · 168 pp. · ISBN 978-1627338769

Independent, unaffiliated with NYSED or the testing programme, and published in 2013 — a date that predates several NYSTCE changes, PSEL (2015), New York’s 2017 adoption, and the entire 2025 Administrator certificate action. The strategy chapters age better than the content chapters. Verify every logistical, certification and legal claim against the NYSTCE and NYSED pages linked above.

On buying anything at all The official set for this exam is four free PDFs, and nothing sold in a bookshop can tell you more about the scored blueprint than the framework does. Spend money only where the free material genuinely runs out — which, for SDL, means extra scored constructed-response practice. The out-of-state guides above supply that for nothing.

How to vet a source

SDL preparation circulates as a folder of files passed hand to hand, most of them undated and unattributed. Four checks, in this order, will sort almost any of it in under two minutes.

Check the copyright year — then decide what the year actually threatens. The check with a twist on SDL: the official framework is © 2008 and the preparation guide © 2010, and both are current, because the exam was never rewritten. Age alone does not condemn a file. What age condemns is the law, finance and accountability content — before 2011 predates New York’s tax levy limit, before 2015 predates ESSA and PSEL, before 2025 predates the Administrator certificate. Ask what kind of claim the file is making before deciding whether its date matters.
Check the test code on the cover. The fastest staleness detector in this field, because programmes retire codes and the successor guide is almost always free. 103/104 is the current New York SDL. A cover reading AEPA 80, CEOE 048 or ICTS 187 is a retired out-of-state code with a live successor (Illinois 225, Oklahoma 248). A New York file citing 107/108 is School Building Leader material from a retired revision — a different exam besides.
Check whether the standards it cites still exist. A file organised around the ISLLC 2008 “Educational Leadership Policy Standards” is built on a set superseded by PSEL in 2015 and by New York’s NYS Version in 2017. That does not make its leadership reasoning worthless, but it dates the file precisely, and the law and accountability content is usually from the same era. Separately: any file claiming the SDL framework aligns to a named standards set is overstating — the 2008 framework cites none.
Check any legal claim against the current statute before you write it down. One click to nysenate.gov settles most of them. A wrong section number or a superseded holding costs you more under APPLICATION OF CONTENT than a missing citation does — the criterion rewards applying knowledge accurately. If you cannot verify a number, name the mechanism and drop the number: “a supermajority of voters is required” is safe; a percentage you half-remember is not.

Specific tells that a circulating SDL file is stale

If you see this	What it tells you, and what is actually current
A retired test code on the cover — AEPA 80, CEOE 048, ICTS 187, or NYSTCE 107/108	At best a decade old. Free successors exist: Illinois 225 (© 2017), Oklahoma 248, and — for the New York building-level exam, a different assessment from this one — 109/110. Keep the old file for item style; take no content from it.
ISLLC 2008 presented as the current standards	Superseded. The national PSEL standards came in 2015; the Board of Regents adopted the NYS Version in 2017, and from 2025–26 principal practice rubrics in New York evaluation plans must align to it. A file still teaching to ISLLC is almost certainly pre-2015 throughout.
“Three-year probationary period” for teachers or administrators	Out of date. New York moved to a four-year probationary period for appointments made on or after July 1, 2015. Three years was correct before that, which is why the error survives in files copied forward — including practice banks that key the wrong answer.
School finance material with no property tax cap — no tax levy limit, no 60 percent supermajority to override, worked examples from the 2000s, or Alan Hevesi named as the sitting State Comptroller	Pre-2011. The tax levy limit arrived with Chapter 97 of the Laws of 2011 and restructured district budgeting, override votes and contingency budgets — the largest change in New York school finance in a generation and the one most often missing from inherited decks. Hevesi has not been Comptroller since 2006, which dates a deck instantly. Replace it with the NYSED State Aid Primer and the OSC publications.
“Suspicionless drug testing of students in extracurricular activities is unconstitutional”, or drug testing described as limited to athletes	Superseded by Board of Education v. Earls (2002), which extended Vernonia and upheld suspicionless testing for students in competitive extracurricular activities generally. A file still stating the old rule predates 2002 or was copied from something that did — and if it is wrong about a case this well known, treat the rest of its case notes as unverified.
Honig v. Doe described as a flat bar on removing a student with a disability	Pre-1997 IDEA framing. Stay-put still applies, but IDEA now permits removal to an interim alternative educational setting for up to 45 school days for weapons, drugs or serious bodily injury, following a manifestation determination.
“Common Core” as New York’s standards, or AYP as the accountability mechanism	Both retired. New York’s standards are the Next Generation Learning Standards, and accountability runs under ESSA (2015) rather than NCLB’s Adequate Yearly Progress. Vocabulary this dated in a written response reads as someone who last led a district a decade ago.
School Building Leader scoring vocabulary applied to SDL — “Completeness, Accuracy, Depth of Support and Understanding”	Wrong instrument. SDL is scored on PURPOSE · APPLICATION OF CONTENT · SUPPORT, four-point scale. A file that mixes the two rubrics is a file that assumed the two New York leadership exams are the same exam, and it will have made the same assumption about windows, fees and score scale.
An answer key that contradicts its own explanation	Not a dating problem but a quality problem, and common in hand-built banks. Where the rationale argues one option and the key names another, trust neither and go back to the framework objective. Circulating locally authored banks are known to carry mis-keyed items and rationales citing the wrong case — work them for the reasoning, never for the key alone.

The one-line version Official material tells you what is scored. Practitioner material tells you what other people think is scored. Where they disagree, the framework and the sample-question PDFs win — every time, without argument.

A source is missing, or wrong

Links rot, NYSED migrates URLs, fees change and testing windows move. Every link here was fetched and confirmed in August 2026, and several NYSED paths are mid-migration, so some will drift. Where an exact path was uncertain this page links the section landing page rather than guessing at a deep link — a working front door beats a broken shortcut.

If you find a dead link, a better official source, a document this page has missed, or a factual error anywhere on this site, please send it back — it helps the next person sitting 103 and 104, and there are not many of us.
File a correction on GitHub