Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Clarification on Summer school

In Minnesota, we have what is known as the BST (Basic Standards Test) in Math, Reading and Written Composition. Last year's 9th graders were the last class "required" to pass these tests in order to graduate. (Below 8th grade will be required to pass the MCAs which is a much harder test)

This session of Summer school was offered to prepare the students for the tests, and give them one more chance to take the tests.

I had a list of 10-15 kids (9th - 12th grade) that still need to "pass" this test in order to graduate. Our district offers the test once during the school year and it's our option to offer it once during the summer.

Originally this session was offered a week earlier and was to run for two weeks, however, it was discovered our session didn't line up with the testing window that the state mandated. So, our sessions were moved down a week and supposedly all students were called and notified of the change of dates. I suspect that is where the problem came to be.

I will still administer the Reading and Math tests next week to whoever chooses to take the opportunity - they just don't get the practice that could have happened.

Oh - did I mention the school's percentages of passing students is published and a lot of public opinion is based on these scores - which could be a whole post in itself - but, we'll save that for another day....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So, are you saying that communication is sometimes an area of concern in your district? Hmmm...