My child is going to fail her SOLs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The SOLs for ES are supposed to show whether FCPS taught the basic, minimum information.

All this review, sending links for parents to "practice" at home with their kids, and whatnot is the school trying to CHEAT.

I would just opt her out and skip the hassle.

It's not cheating, it's more like cramming. That's not fabulous but it's pretty common - nearly everyone does it at some point.

Also, partially in response to parent complaints that the SOLs are too easy (the basic, minimum information), they've been making the SOLs harder over the past several years (prior to covid).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The SOLs for ES are supposed to show whether FCPS taught the basic, minimum information.

All this review, sending links for parents to "practice" at home with their kids, and whatnot is the school trying to CHEAT.

I would just opt her out and skip the hassle.

LOL! What?! Reviewing for an assessment is not cheating. It's a fundamental life skill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade? ES it doesn't matter. HS does have some classes that you have to pass the SOL.

If your kid is in ES, I would look at practice questions and help her get comfortable with the format. She has to pass some eventually, use this as practice for taking this type of test.

Nope. This should be happening at school. Not at home. Signed FCPS teacher

I am not a big fan of letting my child fail when I can help them pass. I would rather take the time to teach my child test taking skills so that they learn how to take a test properly because at some point in time, they need to be able to pass standardized tests on a computer. Allowing my kid to develop test anxiety is not acceptable.

For my entire life, I took all my tests on paper until I took the GMAT. Somehow I managed to ace it. Computers are not hard. Computer science is hard (I majored it it) but using them is not.

It is for young kids who don't use them much. Yes, some kids get a lot of screen time, others don't. We don't actually limit our kids' screen time. They have access to an ipad and kindle fire and a laptop, but they don't choose to play games on them. So their only computer use is at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SOLs for ES are supposed to show whether FCPS taught the basic, minimum information.

All this review, sending links for parents to "practice" at home with their kids, and whatnot is the school trying to CHEAT.

I would just opt her out and skip the hassle.

LOL! What?! Reviewing for an assessment is not cheating. It's a fundamental life skill.

But the point of the SOL is to assess the school's effectiveness at teaching the minimum standards.

Cramming kids full of everything you didn't teach all yeAr or expecting parents to do it at home is absolutely cheating by the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade? ES it doesn't matter. HS does have some classes that you have to pass the SOL.

If your kid is in ES, I would look at practice questions and help her get comfortable with the format. She has to pass some eventually, use this as practice for taking this type of test.

Nope. This should be happening at school. Not at home. Signed FCPS teacher

I am not a big fan of letting my child fail when I can help them pass. I would rather take the time to teach my child test taking skills so that they learn how to take a test properly because at some point in time, they need to be able to pass standardized tests on a computer. Allowing my kid to develop test anxiety is not acceptable.

For my entire life, I took all my tests on paper until I took the GMAT. Somehow I managed to ace it. Computers are not hard. Computer science is hard (I majored it it) but using them is not.

It is for young kids who don't use them much. Yes, some kids get a lot of screen time, others don't. We don't actually limit our kids' screen time. They have access to an ipad and kindle fire and a laptop, but they don't choose to play games on them. So their only computer use is at school.

My ten year old spends all day on the laptop at school. Their entire math book is online. They get way more practice using computers than they should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SOLs for ES are supposed to show whether FCPS taught the basic, minimum information.

All this review, sending links for parents to "practice" at home with their kids, and whatnot is the school trying to CHEAT.

I would just opt her out and skip the hassle.

LOL! What?! Reviewing for an assessment is not cheating. It's a fundamental life skill.

But the point of the SOL is to assess the school's effectiveness at teaching the minimum standards.

Cramming kids full of everything you didn't teach all yeAr or expecting parents to do it at home is absolutely cheating by the school.

No. Reviewing, studying for a test, cramming for a test, none of that is cheating. You're supposed to review for a test. Cramming would be doing all of the review the day before, which no school does. Some schools do more review, some do less. None of it is cheating. Arguably, if the SOLs are covering what the student should have learned, then review is valuable as it's reinforcing required learning.

[Anonymous]

It is cheating because the tests are supposed to measure what the school has taught. Going in to the test cold gives an accurate picture of how the school fell short. Thats the point of the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade? ES it doesn't matter. HS does have some classes that you have to pass the SOL.

If your kid is in ES, I would look at practice questions and help her get comfortable with the format. She has to pass some eventually, use this as practice for taking this type of test.

Nope. This should be happening at school. Not at home. Signed FCPS teacher

I am not a big fan of letting my child fail when I can help them pass. I would rather take the time to teach my child test taking skills so that they learn how to take a test properly because at some point in time, they need to be able to pass standardized tests on a computer. Allowing my kid to develop test anxiety is not acceptable.

Isn't it adaptive? The SOL test will be over more quickly and it will ask your child easier questions. Just don't make a big deal about your child's crappy scores and it's not going to promote test anxiety.

Focus on content, not test-taking practice. At most, have her do it once so you get a better gauge at what she is missing. At the elementary level, failure is more likely to ding the school and may help make the case to them to put more resources toward your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The SOLs for ES are supposed to show whether FCPS taught the basic, minimum information.

All this review, sending links for parents to "practice" at home with their kids, and whatnot is the school trying to CHEAT.

I would just opt her out and skip the hassle.

It's not accurate that SoLs just test the basic, minimum. That was the case about a decade ago, but they currently are fairly robust.

[Anonymous]

Our ES assigned all the students who had failed an SOL to the same class the following Sept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ES assigned all the students who had failed an SOL to the same class the following Sept.

What??? That's awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SOLs for ES are supposed to show whether FCPS taught the basic, minimum information.

All this review, sending links for parents to "practice" at home with their kids, and whatnot is the school trying to CHEAT.

I would just opt her out and skip the hassle.

LOL! What?! Reviewing for an assessment is not cheating. It's a fundamental life skill.

But the point of the SOL is to assess the school's effectiveness at teaching the minimum standards.

Cramming kids full of everything you didn't teach all yeAr or expecting parents to do it at home is absolutely cheating by the school.

The point of the SOL is to see how much the kids learned/retained.

[Anonymous]

Not to downplay your concerns, obvs. you will continue to address her learning challenges, but meanwhile,

I had my kid excused from the SOLS because she would get so upset and stressed out. You can do that. They can't force you to take them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is cheating because the tests are supposed to measure what the school has taught. Going in to the test cold gives an accurate picture of how the school fell short. Thats the point of the test.

Well if that is the case they should be given the last two weeks of school. We started SOLs yesterday. There are whole units some grades haven’t taught that will be tested because SOLs are so early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade? ES it doesn't matter. HS does have some classes that you have to pass the SOL.

If your kid is in ES, I would look at practice questions and help her get comfortable with the format. She has to pass some eventually, use this as practice for taking this type of test.

Nope. This should be happening at school. Not at home. Signed FCPS teacher

I am not a big fan of letting my child fail when I can help them pass. I would rather take the time to teach my child test taking skills so that they learn how to take a test properly because at some point in time, they need to be able to pass standardized tests on a computer. Allowing my kid to develop test anxiety is not acceptable.

For my entire life, I took all my tests on paper until I took the GMAT. Somehow I managed to ace it. Computers are not hard. Computer science is hard (I majored it it) but using them is not.

It is for young kids who don't use them much. Yes, some kids get a lot of screen time, others don't. We don't actually limit our kids' screen time. They have access to an ipad and kindle fire and a laptop, but they don't choose to play games on them. So their only computer use is at school.

they are getting a ton of computer use at school, too. Today my DC used computers in PE and in music.