This year, juniors will take the statewide CAASPP exam in place of the STAR test and sophomores will take the STAR test in science. With a new standardized testing requirement, the administration had to create a testing schedule that differed from previous years.
Testing week will start next Monday, May 18 and will end on Thursday, May 21. CAASPP testing for juniors will begin 8 a.m. every day. The STAR test in science for sophomores will take place 8 a.m. that Monday.
On Monday, sophomores and juniors will report to an assigned classroom and their tests will be proctored by their mandatory tutorial teachers. Sophomores will be in the 30’s building while juniors will be in the 10’s building.
“I pushed [the CAASPP] back to May 18 so it would be after AP testing,” Mapes said. “This way students will not have to worry about AP tests while taking the CAASPP.”
After Monday, the only students testing will be the juniors.
While juniors are testing, freshmen, sophomores and seniors will have guest speakers and study hall.
“We didn’t have Career Day this year, so as a ‘meet me in the middle,’ I worked with a couple of people who have been fantastic with bringing guest speakers in,” Mapes said. “So we’re going to do guest speakers, but we’re not going to call it Career Day.”
For all students, testing or not, school on Monday and Tuesday will begin at 8 a.m.
On Monday, while sophomores and juniors are testing, freshmen will report to the Binks Gym to see a guest speaker from Pixar after attending a 30-minute study hall with their mandatory tutorial teachers. Following the guest speaker, they will then return to a study hall.
Seniors will not be attending mandatory tutorial study hall. Instead, seniors will report to the Alan Harvey Theater at 8 a.m. to hear Harlan Cohen speak.
“He’s won awards in talking about the transition from high school to college and adulthood,” Mapes said.
After testing and guest speakers, all students will have brunch, their second period class, a mandatory tutorial session, lunch, and then periods five and six. Class periods will be 50-minutes long.
“Every student will see one of their teachers for 110 minutes total [during test week],” Mapes said. “I tried to give enough time for students and teachers because finals are coming up soon.”
On Tuesday, juniors will finish up the English Language Arts portion of the CAASPP while freshmen, sophomores and seniors have guest speakers (Mapes stilllll is undecided on who they are) and study hall. All students will then attend brunch, periods one and three, lunch, and then periods four and seven. These periods will be 50-minutes long.
On Wednesday and Thursday, freshmen, sophomores and seniors will not start school until 9 a.m. Juniors must still report to school at 8 a.m. for testing.
“I found extra minutes that allowed us to start school later,” Mapes said. “For next year, my goal is to have kids who are not testing to not have to come to school until testing is over.”
In addition to school starting later on these days, freshmen and sophomores will have Open Session, during which seniors will report to study hall.
Open Session has occurred in social psychology teacher Anne Aldridge-Peacock’s classes, in PE teacher Jeff Peter’s upper level PE classes and during the last mandatory tutorial. The objective of Open Session is to have students interact with one another on personal issues and to discuss how to alleviate these issues.
“The purpose of Open Session is to allow students to develop their inter and intra personal skills as well as self awareness,” Principal Brent Daniels said. “It is also a time for us to pause and talk to one another and to deal with everyday challenges in a healthy manner.”
The Open Session program has had an impact on students who have experienced it in social psychology or mandatory tutorial.
“It was interesting to hear real problems that were happening to people in our community,” sophomore Sam Rosenbaum said.
After Open Session or study hall on Wednesday, students will have brunch, period one, lunch, and then periods four and seven.
On Thursday, freshmen, sophomores, and seniors will have study hall from 9 a.m. until brunch. All students will then report to periods two and three, lunch and then periods five and six.
Periods on Wednesday and Thursday will be 60-minutes long.
On Friday, students will not participate in classes or testing. They will instead engage in grade-specific service learning activities followed by Day on the Green.
Because this schedule and CAASPP test are new, issues may arise.
“This is one of those weeks where we all are going to have to be flexible and just realize we may have some bumps, but we are going to get through it because that’s how we do it,” Mapes said.
As a result of how minutes worked out with the standardized testing schedule, the finals schedule used in the spring of 2014 will be put into play for the 2015 spring semester finals.
Because the CAASPP test and this year’s five-day rotation are new, nothing is set in stone for testing in the upcoming years. In addition, proctors and teachers are going to be flexible with this new arrangement of testing.
“As the pilot goes, so do we,” Mapes said.
