Districts resume annual testing

LITTLE ROCK — Tens of thousands of thirdthrough 10th-graders began taking the state-mandated ACT Aspire tests in math, literacy and science this week after the covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the tests last year.

“More than 44,000 tests were given on Monday,” the first day of a six-week window of testing for the ACT Aspire, Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key said.

“That shows we are getting back to normal and we are doing the things that our kids expect, that our families expect and that the things that our teachers need, and our schools need, so they can understand what the impact that the covid-19 situation has done to the learning on the student level,” he said.

But there are changes in the testing protocols, Key also said.

Those are a nod to the slowing, but still existing, spread of the virus and the reluctance of some parents

to send their students — particularly those who have been learning online from their homes all school year — onto a campus for the Aspire exams.

About 20% of Arkansas’ more than 470,000 public school students are learning online this school year. That percentage varies from district to district and from school to school.

State leaders have been adamant students cannot take the Aspire tests at their homes where testing conditions can’t be controlled.

“We have been very flexible with our schools in setting up alternative sites,” Key said, “so that any parent who has chosen virtual learning for the entire year could take their child to a setting that was not necessarily a traditional school setting but would have reduced numbers.

“We are allowing weekend testing,” he said. “We are allowing options that were not available in the past so that any fear could be remedied by those options.”

Key also said he didn’t see the recent relaxing of mandates on wearing face coverings at school as a deterrent to test-taking by students. Some school districts are continuing to require masks while others are making masks optional.

Javana McCall, special programs coordinator for the Camden Fairview School District, said Saturday testing on campus is an option for online learners at the elementary level in the Ouachita County system.

The Camden Fairview district, like many in the state, has instituted weekly online Fridays for its students who otherwise attend school in person. Testing of the district’s online middle and high school students will be done on campus on Fridays.

Online students in the elementary grades can choose between Friday or Saturday testing, McCall said. The Saturday test-takers will receive breakfast and lunch.

The Marion School District is giving online students — about 31% of the school district’s enrollment — options for test settings, Julie Coveny, the Marion district’s federal programs director, said Wednesday.

“We started testing this past Monday morning and will finish on Friday. Our face-to-face students are taking one assessment a day this week, and each evening this week we are administering the same assessment to our virtual students,” Coveny said. “The district felt it was important to offer the same assessment to both our face-to-face students and our virtual students. We wanted both groups of our students taking the same assessment each day.”

More than 200 students are scheduled for the weekend session, Coveny said.

Most parents of online students have been agreeable to the district’s testing plans.

Key said this week there’s no penalty to be levied against individual students for not taking the ACT Aspire tests this year, but he hopes the students will take the tests just the same.

The state expects students to take the exams.

“We are encouraging everyone — to have every parent have their student tested — whether they are in-person or remote learners,” he said. “Allow them to come on site, allow them to experience these alternative situations, so that they can test in a safe environment.”

While there’s no individual penalty for students, the schools, districts and the state are subject to federal requirements that at least 95% of eligible test-takers take the tests that would — in a more typical year — be a significant factor in evaluating a school and giving schools A-to-F letter grades.

Arkansas lawmakers have already passed a bill this year to suspend the school letter grade system for this 2021-22 school year.