And, parent unrest is starting to surface

Short-notice wildcat teacher sick outs during Kentucky’s current legislative session have already caused a lot of pain for Kentucky parents. On several recent occasions, parents in a number of Kentucky school districts have received a less-than-24-hour notice that schools were being cancelled so teachers could go and fuss at legislators in Frankfort. In consequence, such things as arranging baby sitting and providing for students’ lunches suddenly became a parent problem.

But, things are now getting kicked up a notch. Teachers are again threatening walkouts tomorrow, March 12, 2019, the date scheduled for all Kentucky public school 11th grade students to take the ACT college entrance test. Will there be enough teachers to administer the tests?

Will there even be ACT testing tomorrow? In which, if any school districts?

Talk about disruption! And, parents are not happy.

Twitter didn’t really come alive on this until around early afternoon today, but already as of late afternoon several major news reporters from Louisville are saying that the Kentucky Department of Education will allow schools to reschedule primary ACT testing in April with a new makeup test date in May.

But, no one is reporting about what is actually going to happen as of 5 pm. That means kids are now home, catching up on all the Tweets, and getting very upset – “Will I or won’t I take the ACT tomorrow?” has to be going through their minds. That sort of uncertainty less than 24 hours before test time isn’t a recipe for great performances.

Also, what happens if some (maybe all?) districts postpone testing? Will the scores still be comparable to previous ACT results for Kentucky if the tests are given six weeks later than in prior years? Is there any research about that?

And, if there is a delay of more than a month between the times students in different districts take the ACT, will the scores be fairly comparable across districts even for the 2019 testing?

For sure, parents are beginning to question the sick outs. The Courier-Journal just added comments to its latest report, “Uncertainty over more teacher sickouts puts ACT testing in jeopardy,” to its running article series about the sick outs ACT implications.

Some interesting quotes:

From Kentucky Commissioner of Education Wayne Lewis:

"A lot of it's mental," he said. "And the idea that kids would have anxiety or apprehension about whether or not they would even take the exam tomorrow... we feel like we should remove that (anxiety)."

Well, it might already be too late for that unless the entire state testing is shifted to April.

Nicole Gaston, the parent of a Jefferson County junior, said:

"They're prepared for it tomorrow. There needs to be some pressure on teachers to go in tomorrow and let these kids take the exam."

True.

The Courier also says Gaston, “Called the prospect of another sickout ‘ridiculous.’”

It is clear that another Jefferson County junior’s parent, Elizabeth Straub, may be having second thoughts. The Courier says Straub supports teachers' activism, but also says, "this ACT test is maybe an exception."

Staub continues, "It's second semester of their junior year. You're talking about their futures. This is a critical time for their testing that a lot of them have prepared for."

Yet another Jefferson County parent, Julie Michael, isn’t happy. Writes the Courier, “She said she feels that a ‘rogue’ group of teachers has ‘hijacked’ the district.” The Courier continues coverage of Michael’s comments, reporting she said:

"There's a group of teachers out there and we don't even know who they are and who made this decision for everybody. They should have some repercussions."

Maybe if enough parents and responsible teachers and education administrators wake up about this, that will happen.

Meantime, a cloud now hangs over the 2019 ACT testing. No matter what happens, students have been upset less than 24 hours before some of them, perhaps many of them, have to sit for the extremely important and challenging ACT college entrance test.

Will this impact the validity of the scores?

Who knows?