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THE HURON EMERY | ISSUE 5: MAY 10 | OPINION
Staff Editorial: What’s the plan for standardized testing days? Huron faces a dilemma. For Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) to stay funded, a high percentage of students must take certain standardized tests. These tests, such as the SAT and ACT WorkKeys, each take around three to four hours to fully complete. In an attempt to accommodate these state mandates, and stay in compliance with Michigan’s minimum required minutes to constitute a school day, Huron used the mornings of April 13 and April 14 to complete these testings. The rest of the school day was on a shorter schedule. As a result, many students often do not attend school in the afternoon. In fact, on April 13, a whopping 65 percent of ninth graders, 37 percent of tenth graders, 45 percent of eleventh graders, and 60 percent of twelfth graders were absent. The day after, for the ACT WorkKeys, 31 percent of ninth graders, 62 percent of tenth graders, 56 percent of eleventh graders, and a 78 percent of twelfth graders were not in attendance. Many would argue that school should be canceled for those who are not testing. However, due to staff shortages and inclement weather, AAPS has nearly no off-days to spare until school has to be pushed further into June. But attempting to truncate a 7-hour day into one afternoon is not the best compromise. What would be a more effective use of time is for school-wide events that already take place during the year to occur during half days. Over the school year, there are many assemblies or events that easily take up two to three hours of the day, such as the senior meetings or transition days where local middle schoolers visit Huron. Moving forward, when considering how to balance the number of legally counted school days, state testing mandates and quality learning time for students, maybe the solution comes down to moving around some puzzle pieces. Copy and pasting meetings, assemblies and events whose time frame fits perfectly under a 3-hour afternoon, rather than stuffing an unpalatable 20 minute chunk of “class time” into a testing day would much better serve both the wants and needs of the AAPS administration and the AAPS students.
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Huron students react to classes on testing days
Question #1: How do you feel about going back to class after standardized testing?
Question #2: “The school board explains that the
reason that we have part of a school day after
standardized testing is because we need to fulfill a requirement of minutes to count for the school year. How do you feel about that?”
In an online poll on social media, students were asked if they thought that it was worth it to still have classes after standardized testing...
97%
answered
3%
“No”
answered
Q A “Yes”
Akshar Cowlagi sophomore
Question #1: “We shouldn’t have school after testing days. It’s already a late start so not a lot of people come to school. On top of that, people [who are testing] will be drained and [school] won’t be an effective use of time.”
Nathan McGough freshman Question #1: “The state should shorten the overall school year, so that we don’t have to go to school on testing days.”
Question #2: “They should add more school days [onto] the end of the year because those school days will be more efficient because more people will be there, and people will be end up being less drained.”
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Question #2: “We should come up with a petition to shorten the school year hours. They should keep in mind SAT and PSAT days and just shorten the time.”
Tom Tan
freshman
Question #1: “There is no point [to school after testing], most people don’t even stay. I don’t get why they even add the 4th hour.” Question #2: “They should shorten the school year. They should make the testing days count as a school day, and that would easily fix the problem.”
5/23/2022 11:27:20 AM