State waives test requirements for juniors, seniors
Juniors and seniors in high schools across Ohio will be able to substitute their end-of-year grades for the statewide final exams as soon as the governor signs House Bill 67.
The bill, which passed nearly unanimously by the Ohio House and Senate Wednesday, also waived the American history exam requirement, lets schools spend extra time administering all federally required tests and exempted home school kids from yearly evaluations.
“Our freshman and sophomore classes, though they were excluded, will still have time to meet the necessary requirements for graduation,” Rep. Adam Bird, R-new Richmond, said.
The bill’s passage followed weeks of debate about how to modify state testing requirements for students during the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Mike
Dewine is expected to sign the bill.
The original plan had been to let school districts choose whether they wanted to test kids at all. That idea became impossible in February when the Biden Administration announced it wouldn’t be handing out waivers to federal testing requirements.
So, lawmakers quickly moved from no mandated testing to how to test without negatively impacting students who may have fallen behind during the pandemic.
The exam results will be published by the Ohio Department of Education, but they won’t impact school rankings or eligibility for the Edchoice scholarship (voucher) program.
“This year was incredibly difficult for Ohio’s students, teachers and families who met the challenges posed by the pandemic head-on,” Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-powell, said in a statement. “I thank my colleagues in both the House and Senate for their collaborative effort.”