Owensboro Public Schools will soon undergo their annual spring assessments, quizzing students on a variety of subjects to determine the district’s standing. Officials said the assessment this year is aimed at determining how OPS is doing in light of the pandemic.
Though students will take the assessment, District Assessment Coordinator Lynne Beavers said this standardized test isn’t focused on the individual scores of students, but on the school district as a whole.
“It’s really designed by its nature to test districts, not individual students, so we can see where the district is at in the fall,” Beavers said.
Other standardized tests will take place this year as well. Students will take the K-PREP test April 29-May 18. By law, all schools must take the K-PREP during the last two weeks of school, but the five-day rule was waived this year, giving students and teachers more flexibility to complete the exams.
The Kentucky Department of Education has applied for another waiver this year, which will suspend the accountability portion of the assessment. If granted, accountability of any kind will be off the table for this school year, Beavers said.
High school students will start testing next Wednesday, Beavers said. The state gave all schools a wider window of time for this year’s assessment due to the pandemic.
“KDA also waived the 95% participation rule,” she said. “They still expect us to test as many kids as possible.”
Nearly all of the subjects on the test have been reduced in size this year, Beavers added. The reading segment was “drastically cut in length” to 60 minutes, while the math and science portions were cut completely in half.
“They are trying to be cognizant of not dedicating so much time to the assessment when [classroom time] has been so curtailed this year,” she added.
While KDE is hoping to hold the social studies field test this year, enough school districts must volunteer to participate to garner enough data from the study. Though OPS volunteered to participate, Beavers said it wasn’t yet clear whether enough other districts have also volunteered.
“Without enough participation, it’ll be pushed back to fall,” she said.
Additionally, a QSCS survey given to students will include additional questions about how the pandemic has affected their learning.
Though this year’s assessment was mandated by the federal government, board member Michael Johnson expressed concern about by saying there were a number of other issues students were facing that stemmed from being kept out of the classroom so long.
“The social trauma of young people — that’s what I look at,” Johnson said. “This feels like an unfair practice for teachers and students. Hopefully we’re not penalized, because it’s another inequity.”
