OISD approves altering promotion requirements
OLNEY— Statewide academic tests will now effect whether an Olney Independent School District student be promoted to the next grade following a vote by the OISD Board of Trustees.
The board unanimously approved the changes in policy, which will go into effect this spring.
“The idea is so students have skin in the game,” OISD Superintendent Greg Roach said.
Board members approved the measuring, believing some students choose to “blow off” the state-mandated STAAR tests. Roach believes the changes will prevent that.
“We cannot be the only ones working,” Roach said. “We’re trying to convince students and parents, yes, you’re going to have to work at it. If it gets a little difficult, then we’re going to do our jobs. You have to do yours.”
The policy will be in effect when Olney ISD students take the test in March. Should a student fail the STAAR test, administrators would then implement an accelerated instruction program in order to bring the student up to speed and establish benchmarks for improvement in order to avoid the student from being held back a grade or declared ineligible to participate in fall extra curricular activities such as football, cross country or band. Although taking a stern stance on test requirements, Roach said the policy has a lot of administrative discretion before deciding on whether to probationally promote a student, which declare the student ineligible for the first six declares the student ineligible for the first six weeks of school activities. Should the student fail to show growth in those first six weeks of the subsequent school year, he or she could be held back a grade.
“The policy is written where there is a lot of administrative discretion based on data,” Roach said. “We have tools in place now where we tested kids on mastery of objectives in the first six weeks to see if there was growth. It’s not so much as a gotcha deal. We’re looking for every way under the sun to get them on down the road.”
Roach later added administrators have tools to establish benchmarks for improvement and will use those to ultimately decide whether a student is held back or declared ineligible for extra curricular activities.
“We can have opportunities at the end of the school year, before we even get the state’s data,” Roach said. “If there is any chance, whatsoever, that we can find data to promote a student, rather than put them in a probation period, that is what we will do. There are ways to do that … Even after that test has been taken, we can still go ahead and do accelerated instruction.
“We have all kinds of assessment instruments we can give them, but what we’re going to do is make them work for it.”