Students in Cranston Public Schools will soon be adding yet another assessment schedule to their already packed testing schedules, as the district prepares to implement the controversial Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) tests in grades 3 through 11, which will be taken in both March and May of this school year.

This new, high-stakes test is based on the newest set of standards adopted by the state, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and has been added to a lengthy list of assessments Cranston students are required to take throughout the school year.

Those include Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) in both math and reading, which take place three times per year each in grades 2 through 11; NECAP testing in the area of science, which will also take place in May of this school year for grades 4, 8 and 11; as well as midterms, finals, Common Tasks and quarterly assessments at the secondary level. There are also the usual assessments in the core academic subjects such as weekly spelling tests, mathematics end-of-unit tests, literacy selection tests, comprehension tests, vocabulary tests and any other types of assessments given out on a regular basis in classrooms all over the city.

Rhode Island is one of only 13 states nationwide slated to implement the PARCC tests. However, in a press release posted on Friday and reported in the Clarion Ledger, one of those 13 states, Mississippi, has withdrawn its participation, and the Chicago Tribune also reported on Friday that Chicago Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in Illinois, another PARCC state, will not be administering the PARCC as mandated and instead will be giving it to just 66 out of 600 schools.

The Media Center at Cranston High School East was filled with concerned parents and educators on Tuesday night, Jan. 13, as representatives from the school district’s central office staff and the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) hosted an information session about the upcoming PARCC test, which was piloted in Cranston in the spring of 2014, although no data or scores were returned to the schools for the students who took the tests in the spring.

In addition to the parents and central administrators present, building administrators from every level were on hand, as well as School Committee members, parent advocacy group members and teachers. Many of the educators and committee members were also there as parents with children of their own in the city’s schools.

Parents were greeted in the hallways by representatives handing out information on the “opt out” option for parents who do not want their children to take the PARCC assessments, including a copy of the Jan. 10 Providence Journal op-ed piece, “Students can opt out of new tests in R.I.,” written by retired teacher Sheila Resseger, and a sample letter that could be used by parents wishing to opt their child out of the testing. Resseger was also present at the meeting.

Although the temperatures outside the building were frigid, the temperature inside the Media Center quickly rose as the conversation became heated and uncertain.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Judith Lundsten began the meeting, thanking parents for coming and encouraging a respectful conversation.

“Thank you all for coming out tonight,” she said. “This is an important conversation about PARCC and the Common Core and where we are going in the coming months. Even after tonight, we’d like to keep this conversation going. If you have any questions, email them to me and I will answer them on the school website.”

Mary Ann Snider was the featured speaker, representing RIDE and helping the district administration clarify information for parents and answer questions about CCSS and PARCC. She outlined the history and provided an in-depth explanation of how CCSS came to be, as well as PARCC test. She emphasized the importance of participating in PARCC and other standardized tests as a means of assessing where the student is in their educational journey.

“This is like an annual academic check-up, a snapshot of how our children are doing, and it gives us a more complete picture,” she said.

When asked whether or not parents could opt their children out of the PARCC tests this year and what would happen to those children who are opted out while the others tested, Snider stated that although it is the firm belief of RIDE that the tests should not be considered optional, that there is no law at this time which states that students must take the state tests. She also said that although RIDE feels that participating in the testing is part of an agreed upon social contract between the public schools and the parents who utilize them, parents can opt out of the testing. She clarified that it was up to the individual district leadership to determine where the children not taking the test would be placed during the school day while the others are testing and what those non-testing children would be doing.

Lundsten agreed.

“What that looks like at the elementary level may look a little different than at the high school level, but please trust us that as a district we’ll do the right thing,” she said.

However, in Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist’s Weekly Field Memo to Rhode Island’s superintendents shared later that week and available online at www.ride.ri.gov, Gist gave guidance to school leadership on some of the most frequently asked questions, including the opt-out question.

“We expect all students to participate in state assessments, which are part of the process of education in Rhode Island public schools,” the memo states. “There is no formal procedure for parents to remove their children from participation in any school activities, including state assessments. We encourage school leaders to meet personally with parents who express a concern about state assessments in order to communicate benefits, to correct misinformation, and to encourage participation. Students attending school during days of administration of state assessments, including make-up days, will participate in the assessment process.”

In Cranston, students not attending school without a doctor’s note are considered to have “unexcused absences.” At the high school level, it is the policy of the school district to take 10 points off each student’s core class quarterly grades after five unexcused absences.

Although Snider acknowledged that there is currently no policy in place for exactly how to opt out of the testing and explained that it was up to each individual school district as to how to handle the process, Gist later stated in her memo that policies can be created going forward.

“School districts can have policies requiring participation. For example, school districts or schools can decide to use PARCC participation as one part of determining a student’s grade in a course. At least for this school year, school districts and schools cannot use PARCC scores or achievement levels as components in determining a student’s grade because these results will not be available during the current school year.”

During the information session, Snider agreed with parents expressing concern that there is too much testing given to children throughout the school year.

“I agree with that sentiment. We are testing kids too much. State assessments have been the banner for this conversation,” she said. “It’s appropriate that we stop and take stock to make sure the amount of testing we are giving is just right.” She explained that the PARCC are high-quality tests worth taking, and that standards-based testing is not new to Rhode Island.

“The PARCC tests are more similar to the kinds of instruction our kids should be getting every day,” she said.

Snider also stated that it is the hope that in the future the PARCC may be able to replace other forms of testing at the school level.

Snider said one of the determining factors in states agreeing to use PARCC is the fact that the data gleaned from the PARCC tests would be available to educators in the same year that the tests are given, whereas the NECAP tests were formerly given in October for the previous school year, with results coming in the spring.

“PARCC measures that year’s learning with the turnaround of information during the same year. That’s a giant leap forward,” she said.

Gist’s memo, however, states, “This year, we will not have PARCC results during the current school year, so PARCC results will not affect your child’s grade in this school year. The scores and achievement levels students attain on PARCC assessments this year will set a baseline or starting point that we will use to measure progress going forward. In future years, schools and school districts may decide, if they so desire, to use PARCC results as a component in determining students’ grades.”

In Resseger’s op-ed piece, she noted that scores and proficiency rates in New York “plummeted to about 30 percent after the 2013 assessments, with much lower scores for students with special needs, English language learners and students living in high poverty neighborhoods.”

According to Joseph Rotz, the Cranston district’s executive director for educational programming and services, the CCSS were introduced to the district through a series of professional development opportunities for staff beginning as far back as 2010. He said multiple trainings were also done at the building level for staff during the 2011-12 school year, and as a district, much time and effort has been spent preparing for CCSS and ultimately for PARCC as well, including book clubs and other forms of in-depth focus.

Rotz also explained that the new CCSS were embedded in much of the newest curriculum writing work being done across the district since 2010.

Although representatives from the central office and RIDE agreed at the meeting that the first several years of PARCC testing are expected to bring in a dip in scores as the kinks are ironed out, students assimilate to the types of questioning being done and the gaps in instruction are closed, parents of high school students approaching the college application process expressed grave concern about the potentially low PARCC scores being placed on their students’ high school transcripts, which will then be used for the college application process.

Lundsten agreed that putting the early PARCC scores on transcripts was a concern, and said that she was getting legal counsel on many issues, including the “opt out,” transcript and graduation issues, not wanting to give families incorrect information.

“I will tell you right here and now, you know my stance and I want to do right by our kids,” she said. “We are family-friendly here, and we’re going to figure this out.”

She also stated during the meeting that it would not be her recommendation to the school district to make the PARCC tests a graduation requirement as of 2017.

Gist’s memo clarified that the soonest the grades can appear on the high school transcript will be for the 2016 school year, due to the lack of data for the 2015 year, and that 2017 is the earliest year that PARCC may be used for a district’s graduation requirement.

“State-assessment results will appear on high-school transcripts. We will not have scores or achievement levels available during the current school year, so the earliest PARCC results on transcripts will be for the class of 2016,” Gist said. “Schools and school districts cannot use PARCC participation or PARCC results as a graduation requirement until the class of 2017.”

It was clarified by Snider during the meeting that, although students would not personally be penalized for opting out of the testing, the schools themselves would be penalized due to federal mandates for standardized test participation, if less than 95 percent of the student body at each school did not participate in the PARCC testing.