Do schools care about failed SOLs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they care. But wr can’t take the test for them so “helping them improve” can have varying outcomes. There are 3 main groups of students who consistently fail their SOL:

1. Chronically truant. What are we supposed to do? You don’t come to school so you don’t learn the material. We can’t remediate when you don’t have any knowledge of the content. This group is the hardest to help “improve.”

2. ESL. They will take it twice, fail, and then take Workkeys instead which is more appropriate for their skills and gets them the verified credit.

3. Sped. They can pass with a lower score than the benchmark. Can be tough but doable with remediation.

What about the regular child who does not fit into any of those categories? Lots of children without learning disabilities still fail SOLs. Even in high SES schools with well educated and highly motivated parents..

No, not really. Not lots.

Teacher here. I agree. The majority of fails are ESL students and LD students. I think it is ridiculous ESL kids even have to take it. There are kids not labeled ESL or LD but there are not a lot. Some of them are also former ELs.

I'm not a teacher but I agree also. Also, I believe that the standards are quite low. If a kid with with well-educated and highly-motivated parents fails an SOL, something is seriously wrong, and sadly it probably falls on the parent to figure out what it is. We need to be realistic about what schools and teachers can realistically do. How well does your child read, OP? Lots of kids are bad at it right now because of the impacts of balanced literacy and the growing pains of moving away from it.

My Gen Ed with some IEP support child failed the 8th grade reading SOL. Their reading SOL scores had been borderline passing for several years. I had asked the IEP team to work with my student and to let me know if the issue was actual reading comprehension or test taking skills. Because my child had passed, they did nothing. When my child failed, they were given an opportunity to retest (they failed by 1 point) and their teacher was going to work with them 1 on 1 to help them. I would have declined the retake, but finally, someone was going to help my child who was going to need to pass HS SOLs, so I agreed. With one remedial session and a few practice questions, my child's score improved 49 points. So, yes, the school cares if they fail an SOL, but not one second before.

+100. Same experience