The Montana school accreditation requirements require that school districts begin a curriculum development process in 1991. A plan for student assessment is required to follow curriculum development in each program area. The guidelines in this document should facilitate the cooperative efforts of teachers, curriculum departments, administrators, and school committees of parents and community members. These guidelines provide a simple format to assess a variety of programs in a planned and orderly manner. This document was revised from the publication "Evaluating HIV Education Programs" by the Centers for Disease Control, generalizing guidelines to all program areas. The following six steps for program assessment are highlighted: (1) determine whether the evaluation is to be formative or summative; (2) focus on a manageable number of important program-related goals; (3) select or construct suitable assessment instruments; (4) use a data-gathering design consistent with the orientation of the evaluation; (5) use data-analysis procedures that yield understandable results; and (6) report and evaluate results to make recommendations and modify program as indicated. (SLD)