Delaware PTA Parent Opt-Out Town Hall Meeting

Eden Support Services Building, Christina School District

Thursday, February 19, 2015 5:30-7:30 PM

The panel of participants:

Terri Hodges, President, Delaware PTA

Bill Doolittle, President Elect, Delaware PTA

Yvonne Johnson, Vice President of Advocacy, Delaware PTA

Brian Touchette, Director, Accountability Resources, Delaware Department of Education (He was introduced as the Director of Assessment)

Frederika Jenner, President, Delaware State Education Association

Shelley Rouser, Director, K-12 Initiatives and Educator Engagement, Delaware Department of Education (She was introduced as the Common Core Specialist for DOE)

Matt Albright, moderating from the News Journal

This transcript does not include the presentation that Yvonne Johnson gave regarding the testing. Nor does it include Frederika Jenner’s history of high stakes testing, nor Shelley Rouser’s explanation of her credentials. It begins where Brian Touchette introduces himself and tells the audience what the requirements for testing are from the state. The full recording is available. There may be other parts omitted from the transcript that do not specifically relate to TESTING and questions regarding opting out or refusing the Smarter Balanced Assessment. If there is information omitted, it will be noted.

Brian Touchette, stated that he is relatively new at his job (2 years), and “the department, I don’t think, has done a very good job, at times, of explaining what the purposes are of the different tests and making sure that it’s clear.”

Brian: “First, there is no student consequences for students not testing. There’s no consequences to a student that does test.”

“There are some laws on the books that say that there will be student consequences, but the legislature now for quite a few years, has basically stayed those and said that they’re not going to be implemented and so there are no consequences to students for taking the test or not taking the test. THERE IS ONLY ONE PORTION THAT’S REQUIRED, THE SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT AT THE END OF THE YEAR, THERE’S OTHER PARTS OF THE TEST THAT ARE OPTIONAL AT THE DISTRICT’S DISCRETION, (I heard this specifically at the beginning of the conversation. Those words are transcribed verbatim from the

recording that I have. TWICE I requested that it be clarified, very emphatically…in the manner of q and a that had been determined. We were to write our questions on an index card and give them to Albright, who would then ask the questions. The question was read, by Albright, but put back into the pile. It was never asked.) so we can talk a bit more about those before we…….some of those (I can’t make out the rest of that sentence) and then one other piece that I just wanted to hit, just to clarify on something, that the 11th grade test is not 13 hours, I think that what you were talking about is the total testing time of the tests that a student would receive in the 11th grade, it’s not just the Smarter Assessment that’s 13 hours. It was a combination of multiple assessments that got to 13 hours. (Now, keep in mind, each class period is approximately 80 minutes….that’s a minimum of 10 days of missed instruction or 2 weeks or really a month because we see classes every other day. That’s a point that needs to be made.)

First question posed to the panel:

Can you opt your student out of the test and if so, how do you do it?

Brian responded, from the state perspective:

“I’m going to jump to the other side of that for a moment, to the requirements of participation, and then come back to the parent opt out part. You’ve seen the department’s position in terms of the requirement that all students participate. This isn’t just something that’s our state law, our regulations, it’s also something that is federal law, in terms of that. There’s also within those provisions, within state law, it says that districts can’t exclude students from the state assessment as well, for any of the required state assessments. And, to me, that seems pretty clear that in terms of the district requirements and also the state requirements to make sure that students are assessed. There is also at the federal level as part of ESEA, sometimes called No Child Left Behind, the requirement that all students participate in grades 3-8 and then once in high school. Also Science is in that as well. Our state added Social Studies because that’s part of state law. So, Social Studies is added to our list of required assessments. So there is a requirement that all students participate. Now, given that, there is certain regulation that allows for some students not to participate. So there’s two reasons that schools can apply for exemptions. One is for medical reasons, so when I taught for instance, I had students with autism and pretty significant cognitive disabilities and some of them and some of them had some pretty significant health impairments as well. So, they might be out for months at a time because of a health reason or a surgery or something like that and that could happen for any student. So, for those students, then, that are out for that reason, like a medical exemption, then they can apply for a medical exemption. There’s also some students that are in either mental health facilities within the state or they’ve come back recently to a school that the psychologist or psychiatrist has said that it would not be good for that student to be put under the kind of stress that a state test can cause and so it’s basically for medical or mental health reasons. Um, in terms of parent opt outs, there are, there are, there’s nothing within the state law or anything within state regulation that has given that authority to parents to do that. Um, there is, there are places in state law, separate from this, where there was a thought that it would make sense for parents or in some case, somebody might want to opt out of something, so typically then, those are added in as provisions, because also at the federal level is that that’s not allowed, and basically at the federal level the full requirement that as a state that’s something that we have to abide to. Now, there are some exceptions to that. So, for instance the SAT or NAEP, SAT or NAEP those are, while we call those required assessments, there’s actually provisions that we do allow

parents to, if they don’t want their child to participate in SAT or NAEP, because again, those aren’t part of what we’re reporting up to the federal level. So for us then, we can then ease back on the requirements for those because they’re not part of our federal reporting requirements for SAT and NAEP, so there are some provisions for that. So, um, So and then there’s also sorta to go the next step because I know that the next step that people usually ask is so what happens then if we don’t include students and that’s then when we really get into the federal consequences. So, we listed that on the back, in terms of there’s quite a few federal programs that we have. Um Title 1, IDEA, and there’s a whole list of federal programs that state or that the federal US ED has the ability then to, um, to withhold funds or withhold partial funds and just to give an example of one set of funds that I know about, now I don’t know the totals for all of them, I used to be under Special Ed group within the department. The Special Education department gets approximately $33 million from the federal government, about $30 million of that or so goes right out to districts, but from the federal government, with special education. I know that Title 1 Funds are even more than that. So, there are consequences that in terms of if we’re not meeting these federal requirements and for special education specifically, they have to sign off on assertions that say they’re adhering to all of the federal guidelines including all students participating in the assessment. So, I know this is a big circular argument, I’m just trying to make sure it’s clear from our stand point, in terms of parent refusals then what we see as the laws and rules for us that we’re (contained with that?)

Matt: Now, Brian, just as a quick follow up question, what is the federal rule, I mean what percentage of students have to take the test. I mean 95%, right?

Brian: Yes, but just to give a clarification on that, it’s 95%, but it’s not just 95% of the total school, it’s 95% across all the categories. If you’ve ever seen that AYP table, it’s like 36 cells, so it has to be 95% of African American students, it has to be 95% for your students with disabilities, or your EL population, so it’s not just 95% of the entire. It’s 95% of each of those groups.

Bill Doolittle:

In addition to being the Delaware PTA President Elect, I am also the ESEA specialist, so this is very much my realm that I analyze and study. Um, as to the first question, can a parent opt out? It’s really a fundamental question of where does initial rights lie. Does the state have to give the parent the right to opt out or is that an inherent right that the parent has? And that certainly is up for discussion. I have my opinion. It is generally accepted in law that rights reside with the individual unless they have been specifically assigned to the state. So, we should start there. As to, is there a form? No, obviously DOE does not support it, doesn’t want the districts to support it, so there is not a form from the government. There are certainly wording and such that you can find that online, on the internet that you can, if you want to have a template to use. If you think that’s an appropriate thing for your child, you certainly can do that. Um. Consequences? Yes, the state certainly has the potential to have consequences if they fall below that 95% level. I’ll have to go back and research, I think it’s limited to Part A, but, I’ll look that up and get back to you. Um, through the districts, obviously they’ll have consequences, if they don’t get

95%. Again, children, our students, by my look at the statutes, and I’m not an attorney, there are no consequences. There was some misinformation that was sent out by DOE, to some parents earlier and I think they’re in the process of correcting that now. Some of you, if you have already done out, might have already gotten a template letter, which by my review, I think clearly would be misinterpreted by the parent as to what it said and give them misinformation that it was not legal to opt out. But certainly, we’re in that realm that where it certainly isn’t fully decided but from my review, so far, I find nothing that makes it illegal for a parent to opt their child out. So, then it really comes back to that fundamental decisions about who has initial rights, the state or the parent?

Yvonne Johnson:

Just as an FYI, Bill and I met with the Attorney General’s office last week and I just came right out and asked the Attorney General, “Is it against the law for parents to opt out of the state test?” And he said it was not. So, just so everyone knows and I understand the Department, it’s their responsibility to administer a test and I understand where they’re coming from. But, for those of you that are parents in the room, if you have chosen to opt out of the test, according Attorney General, and of course I don’t have it in writing, but I will get it, ok. I will work on it. He said, that there is nothing in code, I mean what would the consequence be, is he going to come to the door and arrest you? Of course not, but when we talk about it as, you know, he’s very into understanding of education. He realizes that there are certain amounts of percentages that we have to participate as a state, but as a parent, nothing is going to…..I think what’s a bigger picture here is what will your child do while everyone else is taking the test? That is something that a lot of us as parents would like to know.

Someone from audience asks if there are things in place for that. Albright says, that leads into the next question.

Albright: Let’s say, we have a lot of cards here that are asking this. So, let’s say you send a letter to your district, to your school, and your school, says, hey, ok, your kid’s not taking the test. What happens and what are the consequences, if not to the student, to the school, the district…we went into federal requirements, but what happens to the school?

Brian: I just want to make sure, to go back on where I was, it’s hard for me to answer that question about whether or not…there’s nothing in law that gives the right to a parent to opt out, but there’s also nothing that says they can’t. My obligation is to the, what the law does say and what the law does say is that all students must participate and the district has an obligation to not exclude. So, I’m going off of…I have control over, my sphere of control is over schools and districts, not over parents. So, I just want to make sure that’s clear. So, in terms of that part of the question, we have provided guidance to districts that has said that if a parent does opt out, we’ve provided some guidance to them of the steps that they should take. And then we’ve also said that in the end, if they decide that they will, um I’m not sure of the right word, for lack of a better word, I’ll say accept, I’m blanking on the right word, but accept the

parent opt out, that then the child should not have to sit in the testing environment with the rest of the students, just staring at the computer. We have asked then that districts provide something else that is educational in nature for that they’re not just sitting. That’s, the information we’ve provided to the districts. Now we, have no authority to tell them what they have to do. We’re providing the guidance of what we think is, what we think is, if you’re going to do that, then here’s the best practice, I would say, in terms of that.

Albright: So, if I’m understanding you correctly, what exactly they’re going to do while other students are taking the test, is going to be up to each school, each district, that the department of ed does not answer that everyone has to do the same?

Brian: It may not be the same. It may vary school by school or district by district. Some may have a policy for it and others may not. So that’s really something that’s under the school and district’s authority in terms of that. Now, in terms of the consequences, if a school then accepted an opt out for a student, there’s no consequence for that student. But there’s also, as I said earlier, there’s no consequences for students that take the test, unless, and I forgot to give a caveat. There are some districts who use state tests for different purposes. So, then it would be up to that district to make those decisions. From the state level, there’s no consequences. There are some districts that I know use the state test in different ways. I don’t know exactly how, I just, it’s not like I’ve polled all the districts and charters. Um, in terms of then a student that opts out from a state system then, because we don’t accept opt outs or refusals, we would then count that participant or that student as not participating. So, then the participation rate, then would have that student excluded. So they would be added to the other students that didn’t participate, either because they weren’t in school for the time that the test was given or for whatever reason they didn’t participate, then they’ll be added to those numbers. Um, the place then that we see potential consequences is that if you go below those 95% thresholds that I talked about earlier. Which are part of a federal mandate that 95% that of all students participate in all of the cells.

Terri: And just to clarify, because I think that the position the PTA was coming from on some of that verbiage was, yes, the federal guideline does state that 95% of the students have to participate across all cells, in order to remain compliant with the terms of No Child Left Behind and to receive funding. Those are the consequences, I think, the department is talking about when they say, hey if we miss this 95% mark, this is what’s going to happen. What it means is that the funding’s not going to come in. We have spent several months trying to have conversations with some of our districts throughout the state to say hey, alright. Let’s just say for argument’s sake, you don’t meet that 95% and your funding gets cut off. Knowing that the federal funding is a small part of the overall budget, what does this mean for us really as a district? What does it mean for your district? How can you backfill some of these expenses? It varies from district to district. We encourage you to have those conversations with your own district leadership. And I’ve heard everything from, “It really won’t impact us, we have the ability to backfill it, so it looks like it might come out of Title 1 funds, we might pull it out of the transportation budget, we’re really not sure, but if I, as a parent, decide to opt out my daughter from the assessment this year, my

only concern is that she’s not sitting for 5-6 hours doing nothing. There are no consequences, as Brian stated, for me as a parent. There are no consequences for my daughter. There are no consequences for the school, assuming that they meet that 95%, you know. What we’re looking at here is the consequences that everyone is referring to is tied to money that comes from the federal government. So, I think that should clear up some of what you’ve seen from PTA coming out in terms of when we say, “Is it legal, is it not legal? Are there consequences or not consequences?” Yeah. There are. There are consequences tied to money at the federal level. How the districts deal with that, we’ve been trying to have those conversations, to get a good sense on that, but…..

Albright: So, another question that we’re getting a lot of these cards is accommodations for special needs students. What accommodations do kids with special needs get on this test? How do we determine what accommodations what kids get and is that different from previous standardized tests? Are the rules different for Smarter Balanced than they were for DCAS?

Brian: I’m trying to figure out a way to show, I don’t have charts to show, to make this an easy explanation. If you think about, three boxes and that they’re inserted inside each other, the big box on the outside is are what’s called Universal Supports, that’s available to every student. Things like enlarging text and things like that, it’s really about the universal aspect of everything that’s available. Now, let’s jump to the tiny box and then I’ll come back to the middle box. The tiny box is what is called accommodations. A fair number of what was also allowed on the DCAS is also allowed on the Smarter Assessment as an accommodation. I’ll talk about the second class in a moment because quite a few of them moved over to something else called ‘Designated Supports’. But there is something called accommodations. I will say, that this test is, in many ways has more accessibility features than what we as a state ever could have afforded on our own. For instance, now with the DCAS we had a full translation into Spanish, that’s what we were able to provide from the state. With Smarter, they actually have for students that are deaf, they have a full translation with a little video of a person who is signing in American Sign Language, the passage for the student. We never could have afforded that as a state. Um and then, that’s a specific accommodation. There’s a lot, um, I can’t think of all the accommodations, but a pretty large lists of accommodations. I will say that the list isn’t as large as DCAS and here’s why. Because some of them either moved to designated supports or some things that we called accommodations, so for instance, one of our accommodations, was preferential seating. So, a student could sit in a certain place, we counted that as an accommodation. For Smarter, that’s allowable for any student. Anybody could have preferential seating, regardless if they were a student with a disability or not. So, or a 504 Plan, so, so, um so there’s some things that we called accommodation that basically just went into this Universal Set. The middle set, what’s called Designated Supports, the Designated Supports is what we used to call accommodations for the EL population because most, almost all of those got moved into Designated Supports. Um and the designated supports are basically available to any student in the entire state, there just has to be a decision about whether or not it’s appropriate for that student. You just can’t decide on a whim that you want to get one of those Designated Supports but it is something that could be available then to any student in the class. So, there’s actually, the test is actually, you can even go on and earlier Fredrika mentioned Smarter Balanced the web site. If you go into the practice tests, you can actually see the accommodations that

are in there. You can see the list of accommodations and you can actually see how they work. Um, and so, I hope that answers……

Portion of text omitted because was not relevant specific to testing. Question was related to accommodations and Common Core throughout the year. Statement that accommodations that a child is allowed for the Smarter Balanced Assessment do not impact accommodations that a child is provided with throughout the year as guaranteed by the IEP.

Bill Doolittle: I wanted to provide a little more information and clarification. There’s always tension between what may be on the Individualized Education Plan for a child with disabilities and assessment criteria. I think this is across almost every standardized test. Just as with SAT and a bunch of other things. And, correct me if I’m wrong in this, for the first year at least, there’s going to be an opportunity to sort of, in a way, challenge the limitations and maybe try some of the accommodations that aren’t specifically on the list. So, that’s important for parents to know. It isn’t a hard and fast list; at least the first year and I hope for many years going forward.

Brian: Yeah, no and thank you. And actually, thank you for adding that, because there are things called unique accommodations, but we’ve had these all the way back through DSTP. Where if there wasn’t something on the list, I remember a few years ago, there used to be something, it’s called a Whisperphone, it looks like , like the student can talk into it and they’ll hear their voice, but they can talk very softly and that was never an accommodation. Every year, we would get a lot of requests, through Unique Accommodations for Whisperphones, so we ended up just adding it to the list. But, Whisperphones, for instance, I don’t believe is on Smarter’s list as an accommodation. So, there is the opportunity to provide for, we’ve already received some for Unique Accommodations where, then, we can determine as a state whether or not that’s an allowable accommodation. Um, and, you know, we have criteria for that and I do recognize because I also come from the field of special education that there is, at times, this tension between what the IEP allows, which is basically an unlimited field, to the test, which has a box within that field and that there is at times, a tension between that. And part of that tension comes with a standardized test. For instance, an example I give is that I had some students who could use notes as a part of the test or in the classroom or somebody else could take notes and they could use their notes. They were like a carbon copy of basically their notes, you can see how long ago I taught, there was a carbon copy of their notes. So, um, so that, of course, would never be allowed on the state test, that a student could have notes like that. I think there’s some where we clearly understand that we wouldn’t allow that and then I think there’s others where at times we may disagree.

Portion of text omitted. Ms. Rouser discussed that there are both benefits and challenges associated with the testing. Having technology on our side is a good thing. It allows teachers to utilize data, which they have been doing forever, more quickly and without the tedium of having to search for the information. It’s all right there and students don’t get “lost in the sauce” because it takes so long to retrieve the data. She acknowledged that there are some challenges that they needs to wrestle with, such as, having the students other interests and talents be encouraged. She added that these are issues that are on-going and are not anything that can be solved by an opt out. She wanted to reiterate that opting out of the test would not provide a solution for these questions.

Albright: So, we’ve got two sort-of related questions that I’m going to hopefully tie together in a way that’s not too complicated. Um, the first is. Frederika mentioned how DCAS was a growth model, you took it at the beginning of the year. You took it at the end of the year, so that you could see ‘this is how my student grew, from point A to point B.’ Since Smarter Balanced is being administered at the end of the year, is it not a growth model? And sort-of related to that question, is if, and maybe this is not, maybe this question doesn’t make sense if you answer the first question differently, but say I’m a teacher in an urban school, where I have high poverty population kids is it going to be flat out judged the same way as a suburban school, you know, with a more affluent population?

Brian: Ok, I’m going to start with that some of this is going to be coming outside of my territory a little bit because some of this is going into accountability and that is not under office of assessment, fortunately. That’s one thing that I am happy that I don’t have control over. Um, so but, I realize that the test weighs into that. So, let me just talk for a moment about DCAS and how DCAS was used. As you know, then DCAS was a fall to spring measure. There was also an opportunity for a student to take a third assessment, well a second opportunity in the spring. They had two opportunities in the spring and over 90% of our students actually took the second opportunity by the final year. It started off a little bit slower, but by the final year, it was over 90%. And most of them were taking that usually around February or March, the second opportunity. So, the way that DCAS measured was you looked at where the student was in the fall and then they established growth targets, this is for the teacher effectiveness, they would establish growth targets or from within schools they would look at where the students score and then you knew if they were in the low part of Performance Level 1, which is the lowest score or did they go up to the high part of performance level one or did they go across to a different performance level. So, they did look at growth from the fall to the spring. The challenge that we had with that though, so DCAS was 4 years. What we saw over the 4 years, particularly once it started being connected with teacher effectiveness, is that our fall scores started to drop. They dropped after the first year. Then they dropped even further, the next year. And then they dropped even further the last year. So what we saw, then, was the steady decline of the fall scores, which actually wasn’t making sense because we weren’t seeing that with the spring scores. So, it was actually, so, so. We also were hearing that the testing experience for students was different in the fall from what it was in the spring. So, in the fall, the testing experience for some students was ‘let’s take the test and let’s get through this’ whereas in the spring, it’s like there were parties in some buildings and breakfasts, there were all these things to make the spring experience, and I can understand, the spring experience because if you were doing the status model, which was what percent met the standard. So, then the spring, then, experience was much different. Also, we saw that testing practices changed. We actually track the amount of time that it takes a student to complete a test. In the fall, the times were relatively quick. In the spring, we were seeing testing times that were sometimes two and three times longer than what we were seeing in the fall. So, it was becoming, actually then, not a very accurate measure because as the scores kept dropping in the fall, then it dropped the targets and so it was not a , it was not becoming very accurate in terms of the way it had intended to be used. So, now, let’s go to a spring to spring model. Which actually is what pretty much every other state is using is a spring to spring model. Delaware is one of, I don’t even know how many, but we were one of very, very few, if any that were using the fall to spring model. So, the spring to spring model. You can still do growth for the spring to spring model. The, and I’m sure Bill will talk after this because I know that Bill and I have talked about this at length and we

don’t necessarily agree to all these points. But, you can measure growth from a spring to spring model. An advantage of a spring model is that there is a vested interest from everyone who is part of the testing experience in the spring and to have a high score. The other disadvantage that came up with the fall model, is that you don’t account then for summer loss. And so it’s like you’re starting at a new baseline. And so it’s almost as if the summer loss then never happened. Where if we go to a spring to spring model, then some students we know, particularly for students who are from low-income families, the research shows that summer loss is actually much greater for those students than it is for other students. And so, so, so…in the spring to spring model we actually take into account that summer loss through that. So there is, again, this is a system that has been used by many states for many years. Um, and, uh, our state testing system is built on two different models in the past. I’m not as in (?) where they’re going at this point, but was either what percent met or exceeded their targets or based on growth. My understanding is that they are going forward still with that, but I don’t know enough of the details. Sorry.

Bill Doolittle: I did have the opportunity to be briefed on the current form of the growth model. Particularly the pure growth model. A pure growth model is a growth target model. That will both get used. Um, as Brian said, the old growth model was technically the very best model you could have. There were huge issues with fidelity and implementation and that’s why, at a level, they decided not to, I mean, beyond just how much the kids care about the test. There also was a single time taking the test in the fall and multiple times in the spring. That had a significant distortion to it. Um, I sort of will say that if we wanted to do an additional spring to spring model with the old test, we certainly could have. We just decided to never do that modeling. Um, so the new growth model, is briefed by the company that is developing it. It will do some things moderately well, some things it won’t do at all that we had out of the old model. It will not provide any good information at the student level. Or at the classroom level. It’s not valid because it is truly a statistical model. A child will be modeled against a statistical average. Now, that is adjusted for numerous factors, but it is still just a statistical model and because of that, the uncertainty bandwidth gets very wide, even in the best situations. So, we have essentially lost that ability to model the individual student against their own previous test. That’s gone. I believe that there were methodologies that we could have decided to use in Delaware that would have provided at least some portion of that but somebody at the state level just decided that they were going to do what everybody else was doing, which I have never thought was a particularly good idea, but everybody else is doing it. So we really don’t have a growth model for individual students or for the classroom that’s in effect right now.

Terri Hodges to Bill: Bill, could you tell me that as a parent, would any data that I receive from the Smarter Balanced Assessment at the end of the school year, would that be of any value to me as a parent?

Bill: I mean, it could certainly compare how much your child grew against the statistical average of what a child with your child’s characteristics might have grown. But it doesn’t give that direct correlation that we had with the prior system.

Question from the audience to Brian: You didn’t talk about the accountability at all. That just kind of got glossed right over.

Brian: Could you repeat the accountability question?

Audience: yes, the question about whether inner city schools would be held to the same standard as the suburban school?

Brian: Oh, yeah. Sorry, that was not intentional. The, the well. I mean part of this is going out of my area. I’m not exactly sure of the model they’re using. I can talk about how it’s been done in the past. Uh, um and that I have not heard this is going to be drastically different, in terms of that, going forward. But, there may be more updated information than what I’m giving you. So, the the same model is used, regardless of the population of the school, in terms of growth and in terms of status. Um, the targets, there was, the place where there’s some differentiation, this is where I don’t know where they’re going. In the past, what we had was you had 4 groups of students, you were setting targets for 4 groups of students. Your general education, students that have IEPs, students that were English Language Learners and then the 4th group was students that had IEPs that were also English Language Learners. And then there were separate targets set for those 4 groups. I don’t know where the discussion is going forward in terms of to continue with that or not. Um, but……

Shelley Rouser: So, just to be clear right now we are in the process of creating an accountability framework. So, what Brian is saying is that we can talk to how things have been, but that is something (I can’t make out the remainder of that sentence)

Portion of text omitted. Continued discussion of the accountability system. Bill stated that he believed that the groups were still the same. They were taking steps to consider disparate situations. Brian stated that in their application to the federal government as part of their ESEA waiver, they have requested that there be a stay on all accountability; teacher, student, school as part of a learning curve.

Albright: We’re trying to get to as many questions as we can here, by the way. A lot of different people asking a lot of different questions. So, I’m trying to move through as fast as we can. Uh, one of the questions somebody raised is: My understanding is that there are writing prompts or some of the more complicated answer that kids are going to be required to give, who grades/scores those? What are their qualifications? How do you ensure that if you have human graders that they’re being objective and consistent across grading?

Brian: The writing prompts or the summative assessments that are through our contract with our state vendor, um, they then are working with a company (The DRC) which has a long history of scoring and their actually scoring quite a few, Smar….um, our vendor has contracts with something like 10 or 12 states that are implementing Smarter. And so this contractor has most of those for scoring. They have a fairly rigorous process. In fact I was just hearing about this in January, in terms of their process for their

scorers, that they have to go through training and then you have to go through what are called ‘qualifying sets’. So, they give you known samples and then you have to score to a certain criteria. If you don’t score to that criteria, they retrain you, you try again, if that doesn’t work, then you’re no longer a scorer. Then, so that’s sort of the qualification part. There’s a fairly high level of rigor because we want to make sure that of course the scores are accurate. So then, so now we’re actually then scoring. So, they’re getting various student responses in on their computer and every once in a while and it’s sort of a known number, I don’t remember the number, but every once in a while they will get a sample that actually isn’t a real student response, but it will look like one. So, again, a known sample that we know the score of and then we make sure that they have scored that correctly. Because then what you get into is what’s called scorer drift because occasionally you might have a scorer who starts to, who starts to when they’re reading through papers they might start answering things a little differently. So, that way they catch any scorer drift. So then they can, again, retrain the person, go back and look at the other papers that they have done in the meantime and so that’s done periodically. The final piece of all of that that we do is we select a certain sample, again, sorry, I’m not going to try to say a number, because without going back to look at the report, I might be wrong, but they select a certain sample of scores that receive a second score to make sure that there’s also what’s called internal reliability within the scoring system itself. So, you have the second scorer scoring. And then they look at, did they provide, did they give the same score or are they off by one or are they off by more and then at that point, if there is any discrepancy, then again, they look at where was the discrepancy and retrain them if possible. So, the scoring sites are across the country. Our scoring sites are scoring centers. So, they are actually in buildings and in places where they are with other scorers.

Audience question: Are they educators?

Brian: Uh, you know, I’d have to, I’d have to check, I don’t actually……..

Audience question: And who is the vendor? You mentioned the vendor?

Brian: So, our vendor for the test contract is AIR, who is the same vendor we had for DCAS. For hand scoring, it’s DRC, Data Recognition Corporation……..I believe that’s what that means, is DRC that does the hand scoring. This is a company that has a long history of hand scoring. This is not some that’s (?????....I don’t know what he said) they’re recognized nationally as a group that is strong in terms of hand scoring.

Audience question: Wait, I’m sorry, what is the name of it again?

Brian: D R C . I think it stands for Data Recognition Corporation, but I might be wrong.

Audience question: Excuse me, but I had a follow up question to that. Not even necessary are these educators, but are these people scoring this, are they people familiar with the subject matter or are they just people that are trained to know what a correct answer looks like?

Brian: It’s another question…I’d, I’d have to fi, I’d have to find out. I’m not certain of the answer of that. The scorers are scored to qualify, so it’s not, it’s not, they have to have some understanding to qualify. They would have to have some understanding of how to score them. This part is paraphrased because there was some lady that kept talking and I wasn’t able to completely hear the answer. I apologize for that. But, basically he said that he would have to research to find out what the backgrounds were of the people that were scoring the test.

Albright: So, another question that we have here, if a student opts out of the test and the end of the year test sort of helps administrators determine what class track they’re going to be in. What happens if your kid doesn’t take the test? Is that kid going to be assigned…. Do administrators have any idea how they’re going to figure that out?

Brian: I can’t answer that because that’s a school…….

Shelley: Yeah, I don’t know that we can answer that question….

Comment from Audience: Cumulatively Smarter Balanced, but ultimately Common Core, in general, puts you into tracks, so that when you get to high school, it determines, what tracks and what classes you’re assigned to be in. Others chime in: And what schools you go to. And your eligibility for AP classes…so if people are now opting out of said tests, where are these eligibilities coming from?

Shelley: The assessment, so. You’re asking us questions that at a department level we couldn’t answer, how assessment results are being used in each of our schools, but, what we can say is that decisions for students are always made with evidence that we have of student learning and so this is just one point of evidence of student learning. So, we always want to make our decisions based on what we know about where students are, make the best decisions and I know that’s what our schools are doing, but in terms of this specifically, that’s really something you would have to ask at your school level.

Audience member: No, that’s fine. I’m just trying to raise the question so that when you guys go back and discuss these questions because we’re going to see these problems over and over again.

Shelley: I’m sure that this is one of some other conversations that we will be having.

Terri Hodges: And what we’ll be doing, is that any questions that are asked that we don’t have the answers to tonight, I’m collecting them over here and like I said, I will be picking apart all of them,

sharing them back, having conversations with the department after this to make sure that we get answers once they’ve had the opportunity to speak with their colleagues and then we’ll share this information back out and then of course have it at our next town hall.

Yvonne: I also want to say this. There are a lot of questions that people asked about Common Core and I know that Common Core is directly related to Smarter Balanced, but it has nothing to do with parent opt out, so we’re not going to address any Common Core questions this evening. If you have specific questions that you’ve asked, like Terri said, we’re going to go back to the department and get answers for you, but we’re trying to stay focused because we don’t have that much time on the parent opt out because that’s what we’re here for. We want to talk about common core, but not tonight. I don’t want people to think that we ignored your questions.

Albright: So one of the questions here is: There’s test prep that goes into this. There’s time that schools have to spend on getting kids up to snuff on how to work the equation, how to practice it, etc….How much time do you guys, is there a best practice, is there a standard for how long schools should be spending preparing for Smarter Balanced, like in terms of just taking the test?

Brian: Well, the short answer is no. There’s not from our department, there’s not anything that says that a student has to prepare for one hour or two hours or however long it may be. I think that’s also going to be vastly dependent on the students too. It goes back partly to what Frederika was saying earlier where some students are more familiar in the online environment, particularly for our students who have been testing now for a few years, then they’ve met with the online environment and so that’s really going to be dependent on the kids and where they are.

Paraphrasing clarification from the audience. The question was in relation to the amount of time that is being spent on practicing for the test, taking away from instructional time and then taking the test taking away from instructional time….how much instructional time is being lost because of the test and practicing for the test.

Shelley: And that is a good question. I’m just going to speak from an instructional stand point and say that what you’re naming is real, but it is not real in an awful lot of schools in the state. So, I’ve been to a ton of our schools where there is no ‘stop, drop and test’ so, our educators are not in the practice of stopping and “drilling and killing” students with test prep. That is happening, I acknowledge the fact that what you’re saying is real, but that is not a reality across the state. What ends up happen, what happens when this happens in the right way, and it can happen in the right way, is that student’s get experiences that prepare them on a daily basis? They don’t go through the grueling experience of stopping and being grilled on how to prep for the test. It’s not healthy for students to be in that kind of environment. It is a time stealer, but we need to talk, and this is something that Ms. Jenner spoke to earlier, about some of the things that can go wrong. And there are things that can go wrong, but this, this does not have to be

our reality. When teachers, are making experiences day by day that are not test prep, that are things that are empowering students to be successful, not just on the assessment, but in the class as whole, that’s what leads to our students’ achievement. And it doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t have to be hours of instruction. It’s part of instruction. It’s taking the material and making sure that it is the sort of activities that are going to prepare students day by day and that they don’t get to a point where they’re in instruction and then all of a sudden there’s this period of time where that stops. That’s not right for our kids and that’s the kind of thing that can change. Um, yeah, so, that is not a reality in every system. We just have to address that.

Yvonne: I thank you for your comments, Shelley, but I would like to share that just today, I got 7 phone calls from parents, mostly high school, up and down the state, from all three counties, upset about that there child was having to take a practice test, taking away from their instructional time, concerned about their AP and that they’re not going to have this instructional time and you know how everyone takes APs at the same time. So, although I’m sure you’re right, Shelley, these are unintended consequences of a high stakes test. It’s just the way it is because teachers are feeling the pressure and they want their children to have the experience of taking the test. But I think what &&*** was trying to get across and I think what Frederika said earlier is that with all this testing, we’re coming away from the instructional time. And I know what you’re saying. It might not be going on in every school, but even if it’s going on in one school, to me that shows that there is some kind of a disconnect and an issue that we need to deal with.

Frederika: I wanted to answer the question. The lady asked how much time there should be given to test –prep. There really shouldn’t be any time, EXCEPT when you’re transitioning to a new test. Maybe it’s unfair to not have kids having practice time when something is dramatically different than a previous test. When we moved from DSTP to DCAS, we had practice tests because the whole delivery system was different. Even though the delivery system isn’t different this time, the entire test is framed in a very different way. So, if you have a chance, go on and see for yourself. So there needs to be some kind of practice, some sort of “level the playing field” more for kids. There should not be, what has happened in some places, and it happened in DSTP, you know, I’m going to be honest with you. I used to run through a whole battery of science prep because as a 6th grade teacher I gave the science test based on 4th and 5th grade instruction. That’s how the system in set up. So, it was unfair to just say, “Tomorrow, let’s take this test on things you studied two years ago.” So there was some reasonable test prep, but it wasn’t hours and hours and hours of test prep. In an ideal situation, there would be no test prep. Because what’s the test prep? It’s structure.

Terri: And I think we should be having some of these conversations with our districts. I know my daughter is in 8th grade. She’s in the back of the room. She’s done the pilot test. Her school is one of the pilot schools. They’ve done practice tests. I was informed last week that she was offered an incentive to participate and take the Smarter Balanced test, AGAIN, so that the team, the 8th grade teaching team could get a good grasp on how long it would take to give the test because they didn’t know. I said, “How long is she going to be PRACTICING so you get this information? They said, probably

all day. That’s a full day lost of instruction. And she was bribed with a pizza party. No, she’s not taking the test, but this is, they don’t, the teachers don’t know and they’re trying to prepare the best way they can. So it’s like everyone’s between a rock and a hard place. They want to prepare, they want to know what to do, but I can’t say it’s happening in every district, I can only speak for my own experiences and that was a conversation I had to have within my school and within my own district.

Gentleman from audience adds that there is no way to not have practice time. It is necessary just to teach the students how to maneuver the test. They need to know what the icons are, how to navigate the page, what tools are available to them, how to type the answers in the box, etc.

Frederika: I’m going to jump right in with one more piece of information. Third graders are always going to have some prep for the test. Why? Because they’ve never seen it before. They’ve never done this type of thing, so you’re always going to have build in some kind of prep.

Albright: This card says, in the last 10 years, and I don’t know because I haven’t been here for 10 years, over the last 4 or 5 years we’ve had 2 different tests. Now we’re introducing Smarter Balanced? What is the expected life span of this test? How long is it expected to last?

Brian: So, DCAS was 4 years in Reading and Math. Before that was DSTP was 10 or so years. Which is unique actually, with the exception of the Iowa test, it’s unique to have a state test last 10 years. For most states, we’re usually on a 4 or 5 year cycle. However, with Smarter, the advantage we have from Smarter that we don’t have with anything we’ve done before, is that this is a national, this is like a nation…..we could go to another vendor and do the same test. We don’t have to be with the specific vendor that we have, in order to do Smarter. So, even if in a couple of years because we can only extend our contract so long with our current vendor, we’re going to have to put it back out for bid. We are planning, then, our plan is that it would continue to be Smarter Balanced or the Smarter Assessments. And that it would be with a new vendor at that point and that, and that the Smarter Assessments, no matter what state you’re going to will look basically the same and yet, it’s being provided by more than 3 vendors. I don’t know the exact number, but I know it’s more than three vendors that are providing the Smarter. And if you go from one state to another, there’s not a , there’s not a difference, there might be a difference in terms of how you log in, but once you get into the test, it looks the same. And so, we are next week, uh, we are, we’ve been working on a 5 year assessment plan because I also want, not only to have some consistency across a number of years, but also just to sort of know where we’re going in the next 5 years. And, so I’m chairing that next week with superintendents , um looking for their feedback and then I’ll be taking that back and sharing it with other groups before we make some kind of decisions. But I can say, that we also have an interest in Smarter continuing and not being…..DCAS was kind of unique in that it was a 4 year cycle and that we’re moving on right away. But, I will say, it makes sense that we’re switching to Smarter over DCAS. DCAS had also, as many complaints in some ways during DCAS testing is what we’re hearing going into Smarter. About it was primarily a multiple choice test, which didn’t reflect teaching, which didn’t reflect the engaging types

items that a teacher might have. Our students are not entering into a multiple choice world. I don’t have in my job, I’ve never had this opportunity where somebody told me that were 4 answers and only 1 of them was right with my job. We don’t have that kind of experience. And so, and so, the Smarter Assessment is meant to have kids think deeply and more engaged in that.

Albright: How can we expect the kids to answer this test when some of them may not have the technology, typing skills taught throughout the years, especially in 3rd – 5th grade? So in terms of, I think this question is getting at, in terms of typing, in terms of navigating a browser, in terms of how the system works. How do we help kids navigate that?

Brian: So, I think that some of that goes back to what we’ve been talking about just prior to this which is about giving opportunities for students to go into those testing environments and see them. There are some unique item types for instance that you might see. There’s like 8 answers and you have to select all of them that are correct. So, there might be 2 correct answers, there might be 4, there might be 7. That’s a unique way for a student to have to think through an item type. And actually, I think it makes total sense that we would ask questions that way because you’re making them think about each one individually and not that there is just one best answer. As educators, I’m sure you know, there’s rarely just one answer to anything. There’s usually multiple ways you can get there. The other part was about keyboarding. This is something that we have also received a lot of concerns from districts about, particularly for the younger grades, is keyboarding. We, in December, I believe, were meeting with our district test coordinators and gave them quite a few resources to try to help with keyboarding ,particularly for the younger grades, this is a concern. Um, I don’t know the, and I’d have to go back and find out, I don’t remember the um, amount that a third grader is expected to type or a fourth grader. I do know that it is drastically different than the experience for a middle school student or a high school student. The amount that we’re expecting them to write. So, it’s not like, we’re expecting a third grader to sit down and write a five paragraph essay. That would be unreasonable. Now, the way the panels are set up in most of these things, they expand if the student keeps typing. So, that doesn’t mean that the students won’t necessarily type a five paragraph essay, but that wasn’t needed within that. And so I think something that we have to work on also, is being better at helping students understand, what is the amount of answer that you need, the precise amount of answer. And not that if, you’re, if it’s just, for the DSTP, what you could do, you had a box and you couldn’t go outside of that box. So, you sort of limited for that student those lines and you couldn’t go past those lines. That is one of the things that we’re looking at with Smarter, there’s not limitations with an answer.

Albright: What is a child takes the test and does not finish in the allotted time? Do they just stop where they are? Are they given extra time and if so, does that mean missing classroom instruction?

Brian: Um, so, like DCAS, this is not a timed test. And so students can, there’s no time limit on it so they can continue. If, uh, I would have to check to see if there is an end character number for the boxes or not. I’m not certain of that, um, if there is. I think that part of it is then, the same way we would

instruction, instructing students, in terms of for some answers 2-3 sentences is sufficient to give the answer and I don’t need multiple paragraphs. There are some that short answer and some that are longer, a long responses. Um, I feel like I’m missing part of that question.

Albright, clarifying: I think her issue was time.

Brian: Oh. So time… So, time then. A student can go past the time of testing. I know that causes, certainly, challenges in terms of scheduling. The other option then is a timed test. And that’s a whole new level of anxiety if we have timed tests. There is approximate times that we believe it would take, but for some students it’s faster and for some students it’s longer. Um, and we need to allow them that extra time if they need it. And so, um, so in those cases, then and I think that this is something that the schools were already, likely, dealing with with DCAS. You likely had students that were going longer or some that were finishing earlier or some that were finishing right on time.

Audience questioning regarding what the answer was. Statements made that everything has a time limit. People have time limits in their jobs, SATs have time limits, everything has a time limit. So what is the time limit?

Bill: And this is one area where Brian and the PTA and other groups have been having conversations about, particularly around children with disabilities. A lot of kids with disabilities have the accommodation to “chunk” the test. And the test is not timed, but we’re trying to get a handle around how long is it going to actually take some of our children with disabilities to take this test and what impact does it have on their academic opportunities?

Portion of text omitted. Audience statements about students in other states being tested without parent approval. Bill mentioning that Delaware is doing a better job with that due to Alternative Assessments. Questioning whether the envelope would be pushed because of the 95% thing…..

Bill: Um, so it really is about understanding the test and there’s one of the concerns that the test is really a long test, by any measure. When you’re trying to get as accurate assessment as you can, they can get long. You know and there’s a bigger discussion about whether that’s appropriate and can it be usefully used in the way it’s being utilized, so, we won’t get into that now, but it’s really about making sure that we’re not interfering with the child’s educational opportunity to a significant extent. And that’s going to be a real serious discussion with children with disabilities who may have to chunk this into 15 parts and how long does it take them to leave your classroom, take that part, and at what point is it not reasonable? So, that’s certainly a discussion.

Audience comment: She doesn’t have children with disabilities but she does have two children taking the test that have not been hooked to electronics since birth, so they have not been “trained” on how to use a computer all that well. It is painful to watch them type a sentence, much less anything that is going to give some semblance of answer that will show that they know what the content area of the question or what they know about it.

Especially in multiple parts. A lot of these are multiple part answers.

Brian: Right, but the ones that require multiple parts, most of the test doesn’t require typing. Most of the test is machine scored, is computer scored. So, it’s divided into 2 parts. There’s what’s called the computer adaptive portion, which is the bulk of the test, and then there’s the performance task. The computer adapted portion, there might be 1 or 2, what are called short responses where the student is typing a short response. The rest of them are, the student is either clicking on answers or if the answer is a number response, they’re clicking on numbers that then build their number response or they’re clicking a dragging. The performance task has more of what are called extended responses, but that varies by grade what is considered an extended response. Um, so there is, and even going back to DSTP, there was a writing portion of the assessment as well. I understand, I understand, it was hand written. And, so I think that though, it is important for our students, as they’re going through their school career, we’re trying to prepare them for what they’re going to be encountering also in the future, which I think for most of us recognize that it’s an online environment. And so, this is going to be something that is for some students is going to be more of a struggle than for others. And, so, I think that that’s where we need to do what Shelley was talking about that we need to do what we can to prepare students for that within the classroom and potentially even at home.

Portion of text omitted. Conversation that we would need to wrap up because we needed to be out of the building on time because they close. Two more questions would be permitted and then it was time to end.

Albright: Has anybody tested schools ability to support all the computers needed, bandwidth…..

Brian: OK. No, No I mean. Some of this again goes out of my area, but it does involve testing so, I’ve been involved in the discussions. So, the bandwidth of Smarter Balanced is no larger than the bandwidth for DCAS. Um, the, however for some schools with DCAS, they were experiencing problems with bandwidth. So, we’ve already had a meeting superintendents, who are raising similar issues, but with our technology department, DTI who is the state organization that sort-of oversees all of the technology issues across the state and they’ve also been meeting with the technology coordinators in the district to talk about, that they recognize for some schools, that the bandwidth, that if you’re testing large numbers of students that the bandwidth could be an issue. The test itself is no though is no different in terms of the amount of bandwidth that would use in DCAS. So, if you weren’t experiencing problems before, then that would likely continue, given all things, but some days things are different. So, in terms

of IT support, that, unfortunately varies greatly from district to district. That’s way outside of my area in terms of the support that’s given to districts, um in terms of IT support, um and so, that’s going to vary. Some have IT, but even those that have it, I don’t think even those that have it would say that it was adequate to keep up with, not only for just state testing, but for the day to day technology within the school.

Albright: And, I guess this is our last question, it was referenced earlier that there was 13 hours of testing over all the different tests, that’s not Smarter Balanced, but that’s all the tests that students are administered. Why are there other tests on top of Smarter Balanced? Why do we need all these tests? And how many of them are there?

Brian: SO. There’s state tests and there’s district and school tests. We, um, what you probably experience, and I know often I’m getting questions from districts about, or I’ll hear from teachers or from parents, that are complaining about the amount of testing, they’ll start talking about a test and that’s not even something that we administer. So, I want to make sure that I’m talking about the testing that’s just coming from the state level. But, children experience vast more tests that what I’m talking about. So, our requirements then are, ELA and Mathematics, which are assessed through Smarter; Science (in three grades: 5, 8, and 10) that’s established through federal law, through No Child Left Behind or ESEA, Social Studies which is assessed in three grades (4, 7 and once in high school, depends on when the student takes US History) that’s mandated by state law; the alternate assessment, which is only, which is the alternate to the general assessment, so a student’s not taking both, they’re taking one or the other and so that’s for about 1 % of our population; there’s an ELL ACCESS test, that’s only for students that are labeled as EL, it’s taken in the spring, one time, that’s mandated, I believe that’s mandated by federal law, but I have to double check that, but I know it’s part of, you’[re supposed to have a test for your EL population; there’s SAT, which is given in 11th grade is a required assessment that came out of Race to the Top; and I am sure I am blanking on……

Audience: The PSAT

Brian: The PSAT in grade 10. Responding to audience, well if your school is giving it in grade 9 and 11, that’s not a requirement of the state. Again, that goes back to there are requirements from the state and then there are things that districts do beyond that. So, the requirements from state is grade 10 and that was part of Race to the Top.

Audience: What about measures for teacher accountability?

Brian: So, those and that’s a good question about the ones for teacher accountability. Those are not in my office, but then there are depending on which category of teacher you are, there could be Measure B or Measure Cs that are for teachers as well that are… and then, from the departments there’s also other kinds. But, again, the ones I know are the ones that are within my group. I think there may be CTE ones?

Audience: There’s so many tests you don’t even know how many tests there are?

Brian: No, no, that’s not what I said.

Terri: What he did was list all the tests and the grades that they’re available. And what grades are mandatory.

Audience: The question was how many tests are there.

Yvonne: He doesn’t have a direct answer because it varies from district to district.

Terri: So, like she said, there are some districts that require tests that are not state mandated. What he’s done is provide us with a list of the state required tests or the federal government, but he cannot account for tests beyond that that some districts do make our students take, but not under the direction of the State Department of Education, in all fairness, is what he said. So, I’d like to, Frederika and then this gentleman here had comments to make in closing and then we’re going to wrap up, summarize some things and talk to you about our next steps and then get back to the three primary questions: Can you opt your child out of this test? If you can, how does it work or what should you do? And what happens, if anything or what is your kid doing while in school, while they’re not taking this test? Go ahead, Frederika.

Frederika: So, if I understand SBAC correctly, a 6th grader would take the SBAC test for ELA, which is about 2 hours, and then whatever time somebody needs. And then, a two hour test for Mathematics, but then there’s a performance assessment and that’s estimated to be 2 hours for ELA and 2 hours for Mathematics.

Brian: For sixth grade, no. I believe it’s either an hour or an hour and a half.

Frederika: But isn’t there some preparatory action that happens off of the actual testing time?

Brian: That’s the…yeah, that’s the there’s a classroom activity which could be between 20 minutes to 30 minutes, um to get all the students on the same playing field. It’s basically a conversation about the topic. It’s not giving them information to help with the test it’s really just getting everyone on the same playing field. So if the test is about pilgrims, you make sure that all the students know who pilgrims are. And then the performance tasks at 6th grade, I don’t remember if they’re an hour or an hour and a half.

Frederika: Let’s say they’re an hour and a half and then the half hour class time. So, that’s 4 hours for ELA, 4 hours for Math. 4 hours for ELA performance, um 2 hours, I’m…., I mean 2, 2, 2 and 2. So that’s 8 right there.

Brian: OK, I already know that number’s wrong. Because in 6th grade, it’s actually the total number in 6th grade, I believe is 7, I know it’s not 8 because you don’t get to 8 until…

Frederika: OK, and I’ll give you that, that’s fine. But if I was in 6th grade, at any middle school across the state, so, I’m going to be responsible for that. But, I’m also going to take at the beginning of the year, a test for my ELA class. These are the tests for teacher accountability. A test for my ELA, that’s not on the computer and they’re not terribly long, but they add up. ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies, pretend I have an art class and a music class; Art and Music. If I have a PE class; PE. Whatever all those exploratories are and of course, it changes from semester to semester, or marking period to marking period. And that testing has to take place. And then it happens again at the end of the year because

that’s how we’re measuring growth. So, that all adds up. If you’re in high school and you have 7 classes a day because your school has mysteriously not yet gone to block, you have a test for every single subject. In the fall and again in the spring. Maybe there’s formatives, you know, it depends on your school, but it all adds up. So, I didn’t want people to not understand how that adds up. Those tests for teacher accountability are not standardized. They’re not normed. But they add up and they take time.

Terri: Thank you, Frederika.

Brian: I do just want to point in one point in comparison. The DCAS, as we said earlier, for over 90% of our kids was given 3 times. The DCAS was anywhere from an hour and a half, and I think Frederika, was saying 2 hours, potentially for students. So for 90% of our students, greater, in fact in the younger grades, it was almost 100%. They were taking it three times, so when you add that up, across the year, that ended up being at least 9 hours for the DCAS and you had the interruption, not only just at the end of the year, but the interruption at the beginning and the middle of the year. So, the total testing time for Smarter, then, has actually gone down from where we were with DCAS, depending on how many times you gave it to the student, of course. Um, and, and there’s also, rather than there being multiple interruptions, it’s just the one time at the end of the year. So, we have been trying to balance them against more testing time which was for DCAS and less with the new Smarter Assessment. One other final point with that, is that the Smarter Test and I’m sure most of you know this, but just in case not everybody does, is not just given all at once. It’s given across multiple days. Because we would not expect that a student would be sitting down for a 6 hour test in a day. That just would not be reasonable, for a student. And, so, it’s given….

Audience: Across weeks that they’re not getting an education.

Brian: It doesn’t take multiple weeks. It takes, it takes, potentially 2 wee…it could take two weeks, 4 days for each content area, basically, is what the general schedule is, but that can vary by school.

Terri, to gentleman in the audience: And did you want to go ahead and make your statements?

Lincoln Hohler’s, Assistant Superintendent for Academic Affairs from the Brandywine School District statement:

First of all I’d just like to say thank you to the parents that came out tonight. I work for the Brandywine School District and it means a lot to see you here, expressing your concerns around the amount of testing. But, I sit here and I look across the room and I see a teacher that I used to work with, Sabrina Fitzhugh (sp?), who I think is an outstanding teacher. I think if every parent sat here, you can run through the outstanding teachers that your children have in the public school systems. And please be cognizant of the unintended consequence that opting out will have. Cuz I sit here and I think, ‘when Sabrina gets her evaluation and some of the top performing students in her class opt out, Sabrina has to live with maybe a rating that doesn’t reflect…..(at this point several people became irate and were

flabbergasted by what he was saying.) And, and I share the concern on the amount of testing and I just want to be clear (Someone from the audience, stated that opting out was nothing personal against the teacher.) To which he responded, “And I know that…….there was more grumbling from the audience. Terri Hodges called for the audience to be respectful of him and to allow him to speak. To which, the audience questioned WHY he was being given the floor at all. He was not a member of the panel and no other member of the audience had been given the right to speak, outside of the questions that were asked on the index cards, except to clarify a question that was asked. He continued: “I will be the first one to share your concern on the amount of testing, right? But there are ripple effects and I want that to be heard not just to the parents, but I think that we all need to be cognizant of that because we do have outstanding teachers. So, please bare that in mind.

Audience expressed concern and feelings that what he said was a threat, that he should not have been given the opportunity to speak in that manner because he was not a member of the panel….etc.….. Brief, heated conversation about how test scores are tied to teacher accountability.

Yvonne: Okay, we’re going to close, but let me say this. Ok, we came here tonight to find out about parent opting out. Everyone is really passionate about this and believe me, I’m passionate about it, I know all of you are passionate about it. We’re all passionate about it or we wouldn’t be here tonight. And there are hundreds of people, throughout Delaware, actually throughout the country that are passionate about parent opt out. So, in closing, this is what I heard tonight and I want to hear from you if you think this is wrong. But I think we are saying here, that, we came here to find out if we could opt out. They said that there are no consequences for taking the test or for not taking the test. In my eyes, that means that you can opt out of the test. They’re saying that 95% of our students in each cell, there’s 35 cells (Brian corrects and says 36), have to take the test. And if they don’t, what happens? To your individual child? NOTHING. I mean, that is what I heard. To teachers? Well, it’s not tied to teacher accountability, this year. Not this year, at least. I’m just saying. However, they are saying that the only thing that would happen is that federal funding would be taken. That’s not a threat from Brian or Shelley, that’s the federal government. Well, maybe we need to be working on the federal government and changing some things. <<<Applause>>>. We’re about advocacy here. That’s what this is about. So, what I’m saying is, that we, as an organization, Delaware PTA, will be having a meeting on March 22nd, I think, where we will be discussing all of our units take a position on parent opt out. We have not taken a position, but we heard tonight. We brought this tonight and we’re going to have one in Kent on the 3rd of March, to get input from down state people about what they’re hearing from their teachers, but I know that there were a lot of questions tonight that might not have been addressed and we want to address those questions. SO, it’s not that we don’t, it’s that you can’t address everything in a 2 hour town hall.

Recording stopped at that point.

After the meeting, Mr. Hohler approached me and asked if we could speak. He asked me if I could help him to understand why the comments that he made were so offensive and why I was so angry. I expressed to him that what he said ignited so much anger because it was a threat. Every teacher and every parent in the room felt that he was laying out a threat that if a student is opted out of the test, the teacher will suffer. He then expressed to me that he had not intended to say that. He wanted to make sure that parents knew how the evaluation system is flawed and that by them opting out their children, it could have a negative impact on the teacher. At that point, I told him that I was a high school English teacher and that I am all too familiar with the current evaluation system. He then said, “well, then you know what I’m talking about.” I expressed to him that yes, I did know what he was talking about and that talking with him one on one I could appreciate what he was saying, but what he was saying to me privately was not what had been said to the room. What he had given to the audience, was a threat, not concern over the current evaluation system being unfair and that it could reflect poorly on the teacher. At that point, we parted ways.