High Schools Have Problems With Test Times

 By Noreen Gillespie

Associated Press

HARTFORD — Bleary-eyed, woozy adolescents became the target last year of a lawmaker who thought sleepy students shouldn’t be taking high-stakes standardized tests until they are a little more awake.

But his intentions have principals in an uproar.

As high schools prepare to give the Connecticut Academic Performance Test to sophomores this spring, school officials say a new law that bars standardized testing before 9 am is wreaking havoc on schedules.

The problem is that school officials who finesse the clockwork of a school day don’t know what to do with a large group of students who would be on a totally different schedule than the rest of the student body.

And they say it’s causing kinks in everything from bus schedules to lunch schedules to class schedules.

“They cannot administer the tests without, in most cases anyway, sending other kids home or bringing them in late,” said Michael Savage, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools.

In Westport, students who are not scheduled to take the CAPT test will come in later in the day, said Richard Franzis, an assistant principal at Staples High School. But that means missing hours of class time.

“It severely compromises the educational program for those kids, and costs the town a tremendous amount of money for the extra bus runs,” Franzis said.

Lawmakers will take up a bill this week that would let schools begin tests at 8:30 am if they can prove they’re having substantial trouble. But with the test week looming in April, the legislature is under a tight deadline.

“This is going to move at light speed,” said Sen Thomas Gaffey, D-Meriden, co-chairman of the legislature’s Education Committee. “It’s clear to me we’ve got to make the change.”

Some studies suggest that teenagers need more sleep and tend to perform better in school later in the day. Because standardized tests are used as a barometer for school performance under the federal No Child Left Behind law, test results are critical.

Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin Sullivan, D-West Hartford, said he proposed the original legislation with that in mind. But school systems will benefit by starting a discussion about the benefits of later start times, he said.

“Kids are not ready to learn. They’re at their lowest performance level of the day. The earlier it is, the worse it is,” Sullivan said. “If we’re holding teachers, schools, and everybody accountable in the world, it’s just dumb.”

Under the compromise bill, schools that want a waiver to begin testing at 8:30 am would have to promise to hold a forum on school start times, Sullivan said.

Savage said school officials are still frustrated with the compromise bill. He said while most agree schools can do a better job, answers aren’t clear.

“If (students) know they can get up later in the morning, they’re just going to stay up later at night,” he said. “Starting tests at a later time is not going to be productive.”

Sullivan disagrees.

“We want a conversation,” he said. “Kids understand this. Parents understand this. Teachers who teach early in the day understand this. Administrators who worry about school buses and coaches who worry about sports in the afternoon don’t understand this.”