News

District Schedules Info Sessions This Week on New Standardized Tests

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Saying they want to ensure that parents have a chance to ask questions about new standardized testing that will debut this spring, district officials have scheduled three informational sessions this week. The sessions—scheduled as follows—will center on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium or “SBAC” test that soon will be given to grades three through eight and also grade 11, said Board of Education Chairman Hazel Hobbs:

March 23: Board of Education Meeting – All parents and community members welcome. Special presentation on Assessment at all grade levels. 7 p.m. Wagner Room, NCHS;
March 24: Meeting for parents of New Canaan High School students. Presentation for NCHS parents—1:30 p.m. in the Wagner Room, NCHS;
March 25: Meeting for parents of Saxe Middle School students.

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Petition Calls for ‘Open and Informational Dialogue’ on New SBAC Standardized Tests

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Nearly 100 people signed an online petition Monday calling for “an open and informational dialogue” with New Canaan Public Schools about new standardized testing that will debut this spring. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium test will be given to grades three through eight and also grade 11—the “SBAC,” as it’s called, is the attendant test aligned to Common Core curriculum and is also designed to check for college and career readiness. Town resident Amy Sheffield, who has kids in the sixth and third grades now, and a third child who eventually will undergo the SBAC, said she and others are seeking an opportunity to put questions to administrators. “I do put a lot of trust in the [district] administration, and I think rightly so because they do a great job,” said Sheffield, who helped create the petition. “At the same time, because this hasn’t been actively discussed recently, the answers are not there.”

Sheffield said the petition is designed to gauge fellow New Canaanites’ interest in getting more information about the new tests, so that the district has data in hand about how important this is to school parents.

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New Canaan High School Juniors’ Anxiety a Concern with Common Core ‘SBAC’ Testing

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Faced with new standardized testing that they say is burdensome, in many cases inconsequential and raises concerns about privacy and data-tracking, some New Canaan parents have said they’ll pull their kids out of school to avoid it—a move whose consequences remain unclear, a local expert says. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium field test is being administered now in waves, in grades three through eight and also grade 11 (the “SBAC,” as it’s called, also is designed to check for college and career readiness). The state has said districts must get 95 percent student participation, and local school officials are pushing that information down to parents, though neither has said what the repercussions will be if all of those kids do not show up, according to Kate Guthrie, director of academic services with the New Canaan office of Greenwich Education Group. The company’s services include tutoring, standardized test prep, day and boarding school advice and college counseling. “Grade 11 is currently the most contentious piece of this, because there are also the SATs and the ACTs and a number of other standardized tests to contend with,” Guthrie said.