This Charter School must administer any state mandated test whenever one is provided.
STAR--The Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program requires that all public school districts in California administer a single standardized test, designated by the State Board of Education (SBE), to all students in grades 2 through 11.
PFT--The PFT is a state-mandated fitness test to be administered only to 5th, 7th, & 9th grade students, annually.
CAHSEE--The California State Board of Education (SBE) requires that high school students graduating in the 2006 school year and beyond must pass the CAHSEE in order to receive a high school diploma. The CAHSEE consists of English/Language Arts sections 1 and 2 and a Mathematics tests. The state requires that students taking the High School Exit Exam present a photo I.D. on the first day of testing. You may present a California I.D. issued by the DMV office, or a valid driver’s license. The school does not reimburse the I.D. costs. You can also get an I.D. mailing a one inch photo of the student to the school office so that the school can create an ID for you. (Send one inch photo to LVCA, 8560 Aliento Rd., Lucerne Valley, CA 92356 with return address that you want the LVCA I.D. sent to.)
Additional assessments--Details on each of these specific assessment can be found on the assessment webpage. These assessments are a required part of the charter school experience, since by law, charter schools are required to prove that their students perform as well as other students in their district.
It is mandatory that students either test or have a parent request on file stating that their child(ren) be waived from testing. The waiver must be parent initiated. It is unlawful for any staff member to encourage a parent to waive their student from testing. A school employee may only explain the mandated assessment policy. If a parent is requesting that their child be waived from testing, then they need to write a letter to the Director of the charter with a request for the waiver. No explanation needs to be given in the letter. The letter must be sent to LVCA, 8560 Aliento Rd., Lucerne Valley, CA 92356. A school administrator may be in contact with the parent for more information.
The parent may choose whether or not to include any test scores in the student's cume file each semester.
In order to keep our school in good standing with the federal NCLB requirements, we must ensure that 95% of our students in the required grade levels take the STAR and CAHSEE tests each year as mandated. We have an electronic database tracking system for each of our students who are required to take the mandated assessments. As soon as the students complete their testing, a notation is made in the database. Any students that have not completed any of their state mandated tests, as indicated in the database, will be contacted daily and will be followed up until their tests are complete. This database system ensures that we will track and monitor each of our student's testing record. The ES’s must check their e-mail daily to make sure that all of their students have completed their tests. The ESs will be in constant communication with the assessment department during the testing windows to deal with any problems that arise with a student not following through with their mandated assessment obligations.
As part of the ES job responsibility, each ES must participate in the proctoring and/or other duties associated with the charter school's state and school mandated assessment tests. Each charter school has individual testing requirements that can affect the length of the local testing cycles. Each ES must participate equitably with the testing duties under the direction of the local testing coordinator to which they are assigned until testing is completed.