How to opt out of PARCC at Deal?
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Anonymous
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message is, you can indeed opt out, but it takes good planning, diplomacy and stamina
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Anonymous
See 15:03 |
Anonymous
I've seen kids at Deal sit in the library during PARCC and work on independent work because they opted out. |
Anonymous
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Very good to know. Our DCPS elementary school would only work with us if we took the kid out during testing time blocks.
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Anonymous
It doesn't sound like 15:03 or her kid have suffered any consequences, unless you count the hassle of attending one brief meeting at her school, writing one short letter, and taking the kid out of the building for 1-2 hours each morning for one week of school. The approach doesn't sound more disruptive than taking a kid out for a doctor's appointment. Maybe DCPS will try to ban that practice as well.... |
Anonymous
You do not have to take your kids out of the building, on any given day during testing their are kids who are not testing who are in a room with a supervised adult, usually the library. They either arrive to late for testing and have to take it on a make-up day, their teacher is testing but they are not, they have a different testing schedule for various reasons, they opted out. DCPS cannot make you remove your child from a school building during testing. You do however, want to cause the least disruption as possible to staff and other children. |
Anonymous
Problem is that DC hasn't taken advantage of the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act of 2014) provision allowing a state to establish a path for objecting parents to opt out, as some states have. This means that admins at a particular DCPS don't necessarily see it as incumbent on them to assist opt out families, or at least assist them much. We were told that our child was the only child in her EotP DCPS elementary school who has opted out in the past several years, and that no adult would be made available to supervise her during testing. It's heartening to hear that some other DCPS programs are making staff available to supervise opt out students within school buildings, e.g. at Deal. Not the case at our DCPS, and presumably many others, particularly EotP (where, thus far, opting out seems to be extremely rare). Our school's Testing Coordinator made it clear to us that she did not feel obligated to ensure that our student was supervised within the school during testing. No big deal, we've made the commitment to removing the kid from the school during testing blocks. It's a pain, but it's working, causing no disruption to staff and other children that we know of. We'd much rather take the kid from the building than have her take the PARCC. We're glad that we've created an under-the-radar precedent that should also serve a younger sib through the years. |
Anonymous
| If you opt out of PARCC - can your child apply to SWW? |
Anonymous
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Unclear but then private school students who don't take PARCC routinely apply to Walls and are admitted.
In our case, by the time my child reaches 7th or 8th grade, I'd wager that DC will have dropped the "pure PARCC" for a better and shorter test (like 21 states already have). It's a crappy long test, and a cushy vending contract for DCPS higher ups and consultants. |
Anonymous
To apply for Walls (or Banneker, or McKinley, or Coolidge Early College) you need to submit some sort of standardized test and your 7th grade report card. If you opt out of PARCC you probably have to pay to have another standardized test administered privately (most are also designed by Pearson) during 7th grade. |
Anonymous
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Our child had to submit a 7th standardized test score to attend a Johns Hopkins CTY camp this summer. We choose the PSAT (2.5 hours long). Good practice for the 10 or 11th grade PSAT and she easily made the score cutoff. Much more useful and less annoying than the silly 11-hour 6th grade PARCC (the logical alternative). Don't be afraid to think outside the box where standardized testing is concerned.
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Anonymous
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Kids as young as 7th graders can take the SAT to participation in Johns Hopkins CTY camps - they need to score in the 500s. A 7th grader's SAT scores would tell SWW more about his or her abilities than a PARCC score anyway. I'd go with the SAT for a Walls application.
It's good to learn how opting out of the PARCC is becoming more commonplace in the District both WotP and EotP. It's a deeply flawed test that needs to go. |
Anonymous
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I don’t want to get fired because I currently teach at Deal, but all you have to do is go in and refuse to take it.
There is no federal mandate that says you have to. If you morally are against standardized testing, your child says that s/he doesn’t want to, legally, they can’t make you or further penalize you for it. I have at least five students every year that don’t take it for various reasons. Nothing happens. The school makes veiled threats. I am an 8th grade teacher. Mr. Rottman will try and do what he does to all of his teachers and give you platitudes, talk around the issue. Next, he’ll try and diffuse it but when he realizes that he can’t win, he’ll get Ms. Neal involved. Just politely repeat that you don’t want your child(ren) to take it. They eventually have to comply. Best of luck. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| I just politely said we were opting out noting there is no legal requirement in DC for students to take the test. I also mentioned at some point noting every other place other than NJ have dropped all or most of PARCC and having noted law suits filed over them in other places. |