Whitley school districts opt to move core content testing back to May

Local school officials are praising a recent decision by the Kentucky Educational Commissioner to offer later opportunities for annual "core content" testing – a move that will help many districts who lost instructional days due to illness and weather.

Doug Bennett, Director of Instruction with the Whitley County Schools, by far the county’s largest of three school districts, said his district has opted to take the latest window available for testing; May 10-21.

"We are absolutely pleased with this," Bennett said. "Due to the excessive number of days we missed because of snow and illness, we have had to work smarter to help to offset the missed instructional days. This will make a big difference."

Whitley County Schools have missed the most days of the county’s three districts, 24 in all. All Kentucky Core Content Tests (KCCT) must be given during six days in the window chosen by districts. The test does not have to be given on consecutive days and the remaining days are used for make-up.

Under normal circumstances, all schools in Kentucky would have given the tests April 19-30. But on Monday, a special email was sent out to District Assessment Coordinators explaining that Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday was offering alternatives because of the unusual number of days many districts missed this year.

The original window is still available, along with April 26-May 2, May 3-14 and May 10-21.

Bennett said Whitley County has submitted to the Kentucky Department of Education it’s intent to test during the May 10-21 window. It will likely be approved when the state’s Board of Education meets in mid April.

Like Whitley County, Williamsburg Independent Schools also chose the latest testing time available.

Loren Connell, Director of Instruction for Williamsburg Schools, said his district’s testing plan has been approved.

"I think anytime you take three weeks of instruction away, there is an element of unknown," he said. "I still think our kids would have performed well, but it’s nice to have the three extra weeks. For us, I think we are just now getting back into some of the consistency we would have desired to have in the middle of February or early March."

Williamsburg has missed 13 days this school year. Graduation for the district is currently planned for June 6.

Connell said the alternative testing times allow for the district’s practice of having students take "predictive" tests in advance of KCCT testing. Like Whitley County, Williamsburg uses computer software called "Think Link" to help determine in what core content areas students are skilled and where they need more work. The results are individualized and available to teachers and administrators almost instantly.

Brenda Hammons, Assistant Superintendent for the Corbin Independent School District, said the "predictive" tests are very important to help maximize student scores on the KCCT tests. At Corbin, the district doubles up with what is known as NRT testing and MAP testing, programs similar to Think Link, prior to the KCCT testing window.

Hammons said Corbin plans to follow suit with Whitley County and Williamsburg and will test in the May 10-21 window.

"I think he [the commissioner] just basically came to the conclusion that this was a high stakes test and you don’t want to give one school district an advantage over another. This is to even the playing field."

Districts that missed relatively few days would not qualify for the latest testing windows. The move, Hammons said, was to give districts that missed a lot of days a chance to have just as much instruction in advance of the KCCT testing as those who did not. Corbin has missed a total of 18 days so far for illness and weather.

"You are always playing catch up when you miss that many days," Hammons said. "That is a lot of days for our school district to miss. We haven’t missed that many in a long time."

Bennett said that while the later testing dates are welcome, missing so many days of instruction is still problematic.

"It helps to a degree, but the reality is that missing one day in the middle of the week can have an impact for two or three days because you have to come back and review content you introduced but didn’t have a chance to reinforce," he said. "You have to go back over it when students return."