GILROY
– Gilroy Unified School District will continue to find ways to
promote the California High School Exit Exam and motivate students
to pass, even though the test will not be a graduation requirement
until 2006.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Gilroy Unified School District will continue to find ways to promote the California High School Exit Exam and motivate students to pass, even though the test will not be a graduation requirement until 2006.
District officials and trustees at their July 24 meeting decided to keep administering the exam to Gilroy High School students over the next two years.
The State Board of Education left the choice of whether to administer the test up to each of California’s school districts. Superintendent Edwin Diaz said GUSD will keep the exam to prepare students for the real thing and use it to challenge students to achieve a standardized level of education.
“It’s tough when you prepare for the big race and there’s no race to run,” Trustee John Gurich said.
Next year’s juniors and seniors who pass or have already passed the exam will receive a certificate of accomplishment, signifying they meet state competency standards in the areas of reading, writing and mathematics. The certificates will be provided and approved by the State Board of Education and the district.
“You have kids who thought it was going to be a graduation requirement, and now it isn’t,” Diaz said. “We have chosen to be as aggressive as we can in order to encourage students from those two classes to work on their skills in the areas of reading and math.”
Because next year’s juniors and seniors have been taking the exam for the past few years for the expected 2004 requirement, the board discussed ways to encourage those students to continue to retake the test until they pass.
Gilroy High School plans to continue to provide intervention courses to help students prepare to retake sections of the exam they may have failed. Students who have failed one or both of the sections will need the district’s help to achieve the goal of passing the exam, he said.
“We are definitely continuing to give (the exam) high priority because we know that it’s going to be high stakes for our students,” said Jacki Horejs, assistant superintendent of educational services.
While Horejs could not speculate as to how Gilroy Unified may compare to other districts in two years, she hopes to see more students pass the test. Currently, 87 percent have passed the English portion and 73 percent have passed the math test in the Class of 2004. The State Department of Education predicted that 20 percent of this year’s graduating class would fail either the English or math sections.
Although some of the pressure on students may seem postponed until 2006, students’ current performance affects the school and district now. The exit exam counts toward the district’s accountability standards, such as the Adequate Yearly Progress report, Horejs said. Scores from the exit exam, in addition to those from other standardized tests, are used to hold schools and districts accountable for teaching appropriate and challenging academic content.
School Board Trustee Bob Kraemer suggested encouraging students to challenge themselves to pass the test because it indicates that they have achieved a standardized level of education.
“We should do everything we can to promote the test and certificate,” Kraemer said.
He said this might include Gilroy employers asking their potential employees if they have passed the exam. Kraemer suggested the trustees approach the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce and the Gilroy Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to request that members emphasize the value of passing the exit exam.
“The concept of accountability is one we’ve built up in Gilroy and is one we don’t want to lose,” he said.
Making the test count, even if not toward graduation, is another possible way to reward students who pass, said Trustee Tom Bundros.
“The certificate is good,” he said, “that it would be on their transcripts is better.”
The district will look into whether or not it is allowed to put exit exam results on transcripts before 2006, Diaz said. If it is possible, the district will most likely employ that option. Students’ exam results would then be available to colleges and universities, as well as future employers.
The Class of 2006 will take the exam for the first time as sophomores early this school year. They will have up to five chances to pass the English-language arts and math sections – two chances during both their junior and senior years, and one final chance the summer after their senior year – with the completion of all other graduation requirements.
The State Board of Education earlier this month postponed requiring the exam by two years following an independent evaluation suggesting that some students may not be aptly prepared to take it.
“By law,” Horejs said, “the state board cannot postpone the test another time, so 2006 is set in stone.”
