{"id":113836,"date":"2015-03-18T16:12:35","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T22:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/students-taking-new-test\/"},"modified":"2015-03-18T16:12:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T22:12:35","slug":"students-taking-new-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/students-taking-new-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Students taking new test"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"INSIDE:
INSIDE: As a group of moms protested Wednesday outside the Colorado Department of Education in Denver, lawmakers are poised to tackle the controversial issue of student testing. 7A<\/span>Peter Marcus\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Montezuma County schools report that a large number of parents have opted their children out of the new state PARCC test, which has faced opposition from parents and school officials statewide.<\/p>\n

Dolores Elementary students started testing on March 17. Principal Sherri Maxwell said only two students have opted out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also tell parents who are thinking about opting out to at least let their children try one section before they make that decision,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She also asked parents who opted out to keep their children home during testing.<\/p>\n

Other elementary schools across the county only reported a handful of students opting out, such as Manaugh Elementary in Cortez. Principal Donetta Dehart said only one person opted out.<\/p>\n

But still, some principals say the length and number of tests are getting too much for some.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are fed up with the overabundance of testing,\u201d Maxwell said.<\/p>\n

Maxwell said they have worked on practice tests and taught their children test-taking strategies, such as moving past problems they can\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nice thing about the PARCC, at the end, it gives you a summary and tells the student if they skipped questions,\u201d Maxwell said.<\/p>\n

She also said her students were doing well with the online testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur kids are digital natives and react well to digital platforms. I was just in a second-grade classroom, and the teacher\u2019s alarm on her phone kept going off. She couldn\u2019t get it to stop, so she handed it to one of her students, who turned it off for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fifteen percent of students at Cortez Middle School have opted out of the online test, 8 percent at Dolores Middle School and 25 to 30 percent at Dolores High School, the school districts said.<\/p>\n

Mancos students take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam (PARCC) next week.<\/p>\n

Parents have opted out 89 students at CMS, which can be done with a letter to the principal. Last year, only two CMS students opted out of testing, said Cortez Middle School Principal Jamie Haukeness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a high percentage, as we currently have 575 students enrolled in the building,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In New Mexico, hundreds of high school students walked out of schools last week to protest the PARCC test. New Mexico and Colorado are among a dozen states taking the tests this year.<\/p>\n

Haukeness said few problems have been reported with the testing.<\/p>\n

The exams take up to 80 minutes, and most students have finished in time, said Haukeness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fortunate to have few technology problems when compared to other schools,\u201d he said. This is due to the fact that we have over 200 Chromebook laptop computers, and our school has the Internet capacity to handle them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students at the small Children\u2019s Kiva Montessori charter school started taking the PARCC March 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Kiva Staff prepared a healthy breakfast for the students on our first day to relieve any anxiety,\u201d said executive director Josh Warinner.<\/p>\n

Four families opted out at Kiva by writing a letter to the school, Warinner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as technology goes, we purchased a class set of 25 Google Chromebooks for our school, and we have had zero technology problems with them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Students at the Mancos School District are expected to take the test starting March 23.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Brian Hanson said Mancos has had a few opt-outs.<\/p>\n

In a letter he sent home to parents, Hanson stated that the district was required to give the tests. The district is currently seeking a waiver from the tests for next year.<\/p>\n

At the end of the letter, he gave his opinion of the test, saying that as a parent, he\u2019d opt out.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a personal note, I must say that for 17 years as a school administrator, I have always stated to parents the importance of these tests and how critical it was for them to have their child take them. I simply can\u2019t do that anymore and must be honest and tell you that as a parent myself, if my own children were of the age to be required to take these tests, I would opt them out. As a parent, it is your right and responsibility to make the decision you feel is in the best interest of your child with regards to state assessments. Please make the decision carefully and with great thought,\u201d the letter stated.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

high opt-out rate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6363],"tags":[188,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-113836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-news","tag-dolores-star","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113836"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=113836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}