Peetz school board discusses testing, calendar

PEETZ, Colo. – New state-mandated testing began this week for Peetz Plateau School District students.

This is the first year the Colorado Department of Education has required schools to administer the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers English and mathematics assessments.

On Tuesday night, Peetz Superintendent Mark Collard discussed the testing during his report to the district’s board of education.

While some Colorado schools had reported technical glitches with the computer-based test, Collard said the first day of testing at Peetz schools went well.

“The technology worked great,” he said. “The test seemed to run OK.”

Collard said 27 students opted out of the PARCC assessments.

“That was parents writing in and documenting that they’d like their student opted out,” he explained.

The Colorado State Board of Education last week approved a resolution supporting parents’ choice as to whether their child participated in the assessments.

“The State School Board has directed CDE to allow that, and it’s not supposed to be held against our school as far as accreditation goes,” Collard said.

There is no mechanism though to take into account students who opted out within the school’s overall average score.

“They’re saying they’ll have something by the time this closes out, so we’ll see,” he added.

The Peetz students who have opted out so far represent roughly 20 percent of the district’s pupils scheduled to participate in the testing.

Collard said that could affect the usefulness of the scores.

“When you take a school like this – you have part of the school taking it and part of it not – you can’t use any of that data because it’s just not credible,” he said.

The superintendent also encouraged anyone opposed to the controversial PARCC assessments to contact their legislators.

“I would encourage the board or anyone else that is within earshot that they contract their legislator and the people on these committees – the education committee, the finance committee, all these different committees – at the Legislature in Denver and let them know you’re dissatisfied with this,” he said. “Because schools alone don’t have a whole bunch of impact on the Legislature.”

Also at the meeting:

Collard presented a proposed calendar for the 2015-’16 school year. The board will vote next month whether or not to adopt it.

“It’s very similar to what we did last year, but there’s a couple of differences,” Collard said.

On Sept. 18, staff and administrators from throughout the North Central League will gather for an in-service.

“The superintendents got together and thought it’d be productive and a good idea to have an in-service with just all these schools,” he said. “We’re all about the same size, all kind of rural, we’ve all had some of the same concerns.”

Teachers will meet with their counterparts from the region to talk about the challenges and strategies they use in their classrooms, Collard added.

Four other in service days are scheduled during the academic year.

“Compared to some districts, I think we have a lot of full weeks in there,” the superintendent said. “We don’t take a lot of time off during the year so it allows us to get out a little earlier in May. I think it’s a pretty good trade for the most part.”

Next month’s Peetz Board of Education meeting will be moved to the third Monday of the month – April 20 – instead of the third Tuesday. Collard said the change is to accommodate a board member who has had a change in his schedule. Indefinitely moving the meeting day to Monday will be discussed at the April meeting.