Online students must take FSA tests in classroom. Some balk. State wants your opinion.

Mary Keinath has an eighth-grader with compromised lungs, a seventh-grader who got bronchitis as an infant and a fourth-grader with autism. They’ve been learning online from home since schools shuttered last year and have managed to keep their grades up.

Keinath takes COVID seriously, especially after losing three family members to the virus. That means keeping her children home and refusing to send her children to school to take next month’s federal- and state-mandated Florida Standards Assessments, which will drop her older kids’ A and B grades to C’s and D’s, according to what she says Nautilus Middle told her.

“One day, in one moment, in one time, all their effort in the entire year goes to hell because of a test,” Keinath said. “And I refuse to send them in to be exposed.”

Still not out of the woods of a global pandemic, Florida’s public school students will resume taking standardized tests this year. Like Keinath’s children, the state’s million students who continue to learn online remotely are no exception.

How to submit a comment

The Florida Department of Education, however, is seeking public comment on pursuing a waiver from the federal government to suspend using the results from the tests for accountability measures. The waiver would suspend requiring 95% of a school population to take the test and give schools “grades” based on those test results. The deadline to submit comments is March 31.

The state says going forward with these tests has several benefits for the neediest of students. Cheryl Etters, an FLDOE spokeswoman, said assessments ensure equity and directly inform curriculum and instruction for Florida’s millions of at-risk students.

“The results of assessments help identify students who need specialized supports and determine when students elevate out of specialized supports and return to fully inclusive instruction with their peers,” Etters wrote in an email. “The results also help teachers modify instructional delivery to support students’ individual needs and help them meet their unique growth goals.”

She said more than one million state assessments have already been safely administered, statewide, since summer of 2020.

“The fact is, Florida’s districts and schools have proven that operating schools and administrating assessments can be done safely,” Etters said.

Keinath, who is the vice president of advocacy for Nautilus Middle’s Parent Teacher Student Association, has rallied parents from South Pointe Elementary, North Beach Elementary and Nautilus to submit comments to the state. She fears schools will lose federal funding because she’s confident the threshold of 95% won’t be met.

“There’s a lot of parents that are like-minded as well,” Keinath said. “We don’t feel that they’re going to reach the 95% threshold,” adding that she knows of students who are learning online while physically out of the country.

Almost 400 emails with comments about the federal waiver were submitted to the Florida Department of Education as of Thursday afternoon, Etters said.

Testing in Miami-Dade begins April 5

Testing in Miami-Dade County Public Schools begins April 5, right after next week’s spring break. That’s what worries Keinath the most — sending her children in immediately after her kids’ classmates and friends travel for the break.

Miami-Dade has extended its testing period by two weeks. The testing calendar runs from April 5 to June 9.

The standardized test issue came up several times at recent meetings with the Miami-Dade County School Board. Just over half — 52% — of students in Miami-Dade’s traditional public schools still learn from home. A school district spokeswoman said 70% of traditional public schools have a majority of students learning physically in the classroom.

“There appears to be a great deal of anxiety regarding this particular issue,” said School Board member Mari Tere Rojas. “I know we have to deal with external personnel but what can we possibly do to provide answers to these parents and help them understand that there’s certain things that we do not control?”

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho stressed that there is no opt-out process for the tests. He said the best answer they could give to parents is passing on information from the state.

Carvalho said schools are making special accommodations, like using nontraditional spaces like auditoriums and media centers, and continuing to enforce social distancing. The tests are also staggered.

“All we can do at this point is making physical conditions that make parents and students feel comfortable,” he said. “We have no say whatsoever on ... lifting the requirement.”

Carvalho is in favor of the state seeking a waiver from the federal government. In a tweet, he thanked Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran for pursuing the waiver.

“With the state’s testing window upon us, we recognize the importance of data that reveal the academic health of students, empowering us with strategies to accelerate them to their full potential,” Carvalho tweeted on Thursday. “Use of this information without accountability consequences is both just and right.”

Online tests aren’t an option

Jessica Berret’s daughter, a freshman at Miami Arts Studio 6-12 at Zelda Glazer, has also been learning from home all year. She took a dual enrollment course with Miami Dade College over the summer online and took the final exam online, too.

Berret refuses to send her daughter into school for the FSA, which means her daughter will have to enroll in an intensive reading program despite being an honors student with a 4.4 grade point average. She said the disruption of going to school in person is too much — her daughter has had classes that have been sent home to quarantine seven times.

Berret doesn’t have this issue with her 9-year-old, a Florida Virtual School Flex student, who is not required to take standardized tests.

“A lot of colleges and universities are doing it,” she said, referring to holding standardized tests online. “I can’t see why it can’t [be done].”

The state has been clear: “We have communicated to school districts that remote testing is not an option for any of Florida’s statewide summative assessments,” said Etters, the Florida education department spokeswoman.

Keinath, the parent from Nautilus Middle, said her children would have no problem taking the test online from home either. She’s not opposed to tests or data, just not during a pandemic.

Keinath said she’s notified her kids’ principals that her children will not take the FSA tests and has asked for guidance on what her children will do while testing goes on. She also asked about her kids’ perfect attendance and how that will be affected.

“No one could answer me,” she said. “No one could give me an answer on what could happen to my children when their classmates are taking a test. Will they have an activity or something from them to do?”

“Who’s going to teach them because they’re not taking the test,” she said. “They’re not going in the building.”

This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 5:37 PM.