More on Opting Out of SOL Exams in Virginia
Parents refusing to allow their children to be tested on state exams has been a hot topic of late across the nation. The Washington Post recently ran several stories about the issue focusing on the statutes in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC. One article stated that Students in the DC area can’t opt out state standardized tests. The article quoted Charles Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education, as stating, “all students in tested grade levels and courses are expected to participate in Virginia’s SOL assessment program, unless specifically exempted by state or federal law or by Board of Education regulations.”
While Mr Pyle is correct that there is no opt out provision in state law, as is often the case with education bureaucrats, he omitted a few things. While there is no opt out provision in state law, there is no law, policy, or regulation that prohibits parents from refusing to allow their children to be tested. Your child will receive a zero as their SOL exam scores, but he / she will not be forced to take any exam that you as a parent have refused to allow him / her to take.
State law does require students to pass SOL exams in certain high school level courses to graduate, like English 11, Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, World History Part I, World History Part II, and U.S. History. If your child doesn’t take and pass these SOL exams, they won’t graduate. So, if you want your child to graduate from high school, they have to take and pass these SOL exams.
While state law requires students to pass those exams to graduate, state law does not require students to pass their grade level exams. Passing scores on grade level SOL exams are not required per state law for a student to move up a grade level.
School Board Report – May 1, 2013
School Board Report for May 1, 2013. UPDATE: Please be advised that comments are not verbatim. All members were present. Consent Agenda All items on the consent agenda were approved unanimously. The items on the agenda include the following: Annual Local Plan for Career and Technical Education as required Carl D Perkins CTE Act of […]
Closed Versus Open Meetings
For the past year I’ve been providing reports on what is discussed at school board meetings. At the start of each meeting the school board certifies in open session that nothing was discussed in closed session that ought to have been discussed in public session. Several people have asked about this recently, so I wanted […]
