Do you allow SOL retakes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid failed the 5th grade reading SOL by a couple of points, retook it, and passed. It didn't seem to be a big deal. He's a smart kid (got advanced pass on the math), just messed up the reading test for some reason. They only offered retakes to the kids who they thought would pass, I think, not to the kids who failed by a lot--those kids went to summer school and then retook the test at the end of the summer. I think he ended up with 450 on reading, which is still not great but whatever.

Should add--we go to a Title 1 school. They need every passing grade they can get. I can live with my kid sitting through another test if it means the school looks a little better, and a passing grade is accurately reflective of his actual knowledge/performance.

Would you feel differently at a school with high scores?

[Anonymous]

My DD has ADHD and she’s a 5th grader I will not allowed her to retake her sol if she fails the first time. There no need

[Anonymous]

No. My older child (now in HS) got below a 400 once on a math SOL in grade school and a 600 on the Virginia history SOL. In the case of the perfect score, it meant nada. Zip. Did she get to do some advance history study the next year? Nope. So why would I have her retake the one "failing" SOL she ever had? That's not going to happen, because by not "advancing" the kids who did well/perfect, the SOLs also mean very little if a kid didn't do as well.

Until the SOLs *actually count for something in grade school*, you don't need to make them re-take it. Btw, this kid is now in advanced math in HS.

--HS mom

[Anonymous]

I have not had this come up yet. I have a third grader getting ready to take his first SOL’s this month. I can’t inagine he’d fail one but sure, I’d let him retake it. I love our school so happy to do it for the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. For ES, SOL’s do not affect class placement. Even my 5th grader, headed to MS, has already been placed for next year.

Our school does use it to determine lowest and middle math group and whether to bump anyone to level 4. It's also a data point used to determine if a kid should take Math 7 or Math 7 honors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. For ES, SOL’s do not affect class placement. Even my 5th grader, headed to MS, has already been placed for next year.

Our school does use it to determine lowest and middle math group and whether to bump anyone to level 4. It's also a data point used to determine if a kid should take Math 7 or Math 7 honors.

OP here. I’m in LCPS which sadly has NO classroom differentiation, except reading groups which are done by DRA, not SOL. There is a 1 day/week gifted program in 4th and 5th that my daughter does, but it’s based on Cogat/nnat, not SOL. And all of her classes for next year (6th) were recommended/confirmed in February, well before even the original SOL test date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid failed the 5th grade reading SOL by a couple of points, retook it, and passed. It didn't seem to be a big deal. He's a smart kid (got advanced pass on the math), just messed up the reading test for some reason. They only offered retakes to the kids who they thought would pass, I think, not to the kids who failed by a lot--those kids went to summer school and then retook the test at the end of the summer. I think he ended up with 450 on reading, which is still not great but whatever.

Should add--we go to a Title 1 school. They need every passing grade they can get. I can live with my kid sitting through another test if it means the school looks a little better, and a passing grade is accurately reflective of his actual knowledge/performance.

Would you feel differently at a school with high scores?

Probably not, because I see myself as part of a community, and for now taking and reporting SOL scores is part of what the community does. What OP said:

Anonymous wrote:I always say no because I don’t want my child missing instructional time just to boost the school’s pass rate. If my child didn’t pass, well then she didn’t pass.

is both privilege in action and a classic free rider situation. My guess is that OP has no concerns about her school's overall ranking suffering because her kid didn't pass, so she isn't going to make her kid miss instructional time in order to retake the test. She gets the benefit of a school that passes and a kid that doesn't miss class. I'm not that kind of person.

[Anonymous]

I teach third grade. More than half have chosen “no” so far on the retake option. So be it and more power to them. I would choose the same.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I do, and I have. DD has always struggled in math, and failed several times, by a small enough margin that the school offered her remediation for a few weeks, and then a retake. She passed the retake each time. In my mind, extra math never hurts (and I consider the test extra math as well, not just the remediation). If she does not know the material enough to pass, then she can use all the help she can get. She already has a tutor, but if the school is also adding extra resources, why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How long does these tests take? I teach in MD so nobody is allowed to retake PARCC in ES or MS. It takes forever just to take it once.

I’m sure it depends on a variety of things. We split reading and math over two days. I’d say maybe 1.5 hours each.

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

I'm a teacher and our school does not do the blanket permission to retake; we call each parent in the retake pool (these are kids who only missed by 3-5 questions) to get permission. We get a printout of specific skills the student needs remediation on and we do 1 week of 1:1 and small group remediation, and then the student retakes. It's not a huge number of kids, but a pass is a pass.

[Anonymous]

I'm a middle school math teacher in FCPS. I would not have my kid retake any SOL until they got to high school since passing SOLs is a graduation requirement in order to receive a diploma.

[Anonymous]

So what if the school slips in a ranking? Having your kid do extra remediation is just going to stress the kid and all the other kids will realize who has to retake. Unless you’re trying to qualify for a special program, it doesn’t matter. We look at the scores once in September and then forget about them. Kids move in and out of instructional groups all the time. Retaking is a huge strain on the staff, who have to schedule them and the proctors, etc. We breathe a sigh of relief if the parent says no to retake. Big deal if they get ten more points and pass. It goes in a file and doesn’t count for anything. It’s one moment in time and crappy tests. Today we had a fourth grader with ADHD who didn’t realize he hadn’t scrolled all the way down to read the whole passage, even though he’d been told to ahead of time. When the teacher noticed that he hadn’t read it all, she as the allowed to tell him to keep reading. It tested if he can take a test, not if he can read. He got confused and gave up. Not a measure of skills in reading. Good measure of executive functioning, though!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what if the school slips in a ranking? Having your kid do extra remediation is just going to stress the kid and all the other kids will realize who has to retake. Unless you’re trying to qualify for a special program, it doesn’t matter. We look at the scores once in September and then forget about them. Kids move in and out of instructional groups all the time. Retaking is a huge strain on the staff, who have to schedule them and the proctors, etc. We breathe a sigh of relief if the parent says no to retake. Big deal if they get ten more points and pass. It goes in a file and doesn’t count for anything. It’s one moment in time and crappy tests. Today we had a fourth grader with ADHD who didn’t realize he hadn’t scrolled all the way down to read the whole passage, even though he’d been told to ahead of time. When the teacher noticed that he hadn’t read it all, she as the allowed to tell him to keep reading. It tested if he can take a test, not if he can read. He got confused and gave up. Not a measure of skills in reading. Good measure of executive functioning, though!

Yes to this!

We don’t start testing until next week which will squeeze remediation into an even tighter window.