Opting Out of State Test - PARCC

In my opinion it shows her that if she builds up anxiety with whatever mom will get me out of it. I have a daughter who is diabetic and we have autistic kids in the family as well. They are all treated the same. If tthere's a test at school they take the test. If she misses her snack st school bc of assemblies then she will just get a larger snack at home. You daughter will be doing state tests for the next 5 years. Along with tthe sat and act for college. She has to work through her test anxiety. She can't have you opt out she won't get better if you do.

The PARCC isn't really the issue here. There's always going to be something dumb, pointless or difficult to do in life. We don't like it, but we do it so we can move up to the next level of dumb, pointless or difficult things to do. You can't just opt her out of everything.

Her anxiety is an issue. Opting out of everything that scares her only reinforces her belief that she has something to be scared of. This isn't going to help her; it's going to create learned helplessness. You're going to have to work to teach her coping mechanisms as well as treating her anxiety. You're going to have to push her, even if she cries, so that when she's successfuly completed the task she feared, you have something to really praise.

Her teacher's insensitivity is also an issue. Talk to the school about your concerns, which are not just for her but other students as well. Teachers ought not "call out" students who need extra instruction. However, this conversation doesn't need to include your daughter. You don't always need to play superhero, swooping in and saving the day from all things scary or unfair. She needs to learn to speak for herself when it's appropriate, and also to know that a test is not something to cry about. All she has to do is share what she knows...nothing further is expected of her.

Our job as parents isn't to snowplow every difficult thing out of our kids' lives. It's to pull out the shovels, show them how to move the snow, and then hand them one so they can do the same. Step back, mama. Have faith that she can do this thing. Don't opt out.

i think the ridiculous focus on herd testing is out of control (thanks NCLB.)
but i'm not at all sure that your approach is helpful for a child with 'severe anxiety.' if her anxiety is so severe that she's been crying for weeks over a test that doesn't even impact her grades, she needs medication and a very very pro-active counselor, because that's a very out-of-proportion reaction.
but she also needs very calm, steady, no-nonsense parenting. it concerns me greatly that you are simply going with her on 'the teachers are mean to me' and not on 'this is your work and you need to buckle down.' the very last thing that an anxious kid needs is a parent who does the anxiety dance with her.
i'm all about homeschooling, but pulling her out or moving schools because people sometimes look at her or talk to her isn't going to help her cope with life. you need to look past these stupid tests and formulate a plan to help your daughter deal with ALL life's challenges in a strong, confident fashion. opting out and insisting that it's all the teachers' fault isn't helping her at all.
khairete
S.

I am sorry that your daughter has anxiety issues, especially when it comes to timed testing. MANY kids have anxiety about the tests.

What does her counselor say? I'd be surprised if you were given the advice to opt out by a professional or switch school over something like this. Are there other issues on top of anxiety? Personality, friends, etc.

In our schools, it is determined if it would be best (less anxiety) if a child is tested one on one with a teacher, in a small group or with the class. There is no shame on the ways children are tested and the teachers are very good about being sensitive to the child's needs. They might have more breaks, get up and walk around a bit, etc. It is highly structured and monitored by staff. A 504 plan is not implemented to qualify a student to be tested in small groups or one on one. It is something that is discussed with the student, parents and counselors. It is not a "taboo" thing to be with a teacher in small group. In fact, a lot of kids try hard to get into a small group or one on one.

How do you know the teachers are insensitive? Have you been there to watch OR are you relying on what your daughter is telling you. Get facts because you make assumptions that the teachers are insensitive and call kids out like your daughter say they do. You are getting her side of that story and not the full story. Children will do a lot of exaggerating to get their way with their parents.

That said, if you choose to opt of this test, look at what you are teaching your daughter? Mom will get her out of things she does not want to do or things that cause her anxiety. She's already learned how to manipulate you in this regard.. What good will changing schools do? If you do choose to change schools, she STILL has to learn to cope with her anxiety.

She is in 7th grade. She will start testing for college in 9th grade on which will eventually include the SAT and ACT. I would think you do want her to go to college and get educated.

She needs to learn coping skills now and how to implement them to best suit her needs. There will be a time that you are not around to bail her out of things she does not want to do. By opting out, you are just making things worse because you are enabling her and coddling her due to her anxiety.

We all have certain things we'd rather not do that causes us anxiety but we all have to cope with that and a lot of coping skills are learning in the school setting.

I hope you can discuss this with her counselors and come to understand that this is something she needs to go through. She is growing up, only 5 years of school left before moving on to college. It is past time that she learns to cope so please help her cope now so she can grow to be a mature adult who can make decisions and live without such anxiety in her life.

A lot of this testing atmosphere came about because we wanted accountability in the schools.
Measuring the schools/teachers performance has sort of gone on to an illogical extreme.
Everything seems to center around the SOLs - they teach to them and little else - and once the SOLs are done - I'm not sure why they bother going to school because it's movie time from that point till mid June.
The thing is - no matter how accountable/good the schools are - failing an SOL just means the kid has to go to summer school - with the HOPE they will improve - and it's still entirely possible that the kid will graduate without the skills they will need to function beyond school.
Some kids (and their parents) REFUSE to learn no matter how you bend over backwards for them.
But the whole No Child Left Behind thing is about trying to work with people who don't always want to be worked with (they WANT to be left behind) - and everybody HAS to ride on the same bandwagon.
It's a disaster for GATE kids - who are bored out of their minds by this whole business - most of them pass SOLs (and achieve top scores) blindfolded with one hand tied behind their backs.

But I digress.
I'm sorry the testing process has been so stressful for your child.
By working with her - they are trying to LESSEN the stress (make her feel more comfortable) - but it's having the opposite effect.
It's surely a very aggravating situation.
The thing is - it gets worse in high school - especially as graduation gets closer and they are taking PSATs and SATs and applying to colleges and for scholarships and internships, etc and so forth.
It's plenty over the top stressful enough for kids who don't have anxiety issues.

Rather than opting out now - I think the ultimate goal is for your daughter to learn coping techniques.
She's going to have to find a way to deal with it sooner or later.
Good luck!

Your daughter is plagued by anxiety, you believe the teachers to be insensitive to her mental health, you believe her education to consist only of useless test preparation, she has requested repeatedly to be homeschooled or change schools.

Based on what you wrote, why wouldn't you consider opting out of the school system entirely and homeschool her?

JMO, but I think the test is the least of your concerns.

These tests are not really as difficult as they seem.

Grades were never our goal with our daughter. Never. The state tests were used to see what the kids know and what they still need to work on. Don't you want to know? They are not a judgement on the character or intelligence of the students.

I told her I wanted her to do her best. If that meant she got passing grade and she felt she had done her best, that was fine with me.

Same for these state tests. I told our daughter to take her time and to do her best. These tests are just a benchmark and not to worry.

Your daughter for some reason has taken all of this as some really big deal, when in reality, in the long run, as long as she tries, and does her best , that will be great.

She wants to finish this year at this school? That is a good sign as far as I am concerned. All of the moving around could make her feel like you do not think she can do the work at the current school.

Nervous and ultra sensitive children need, confident, supportive parents. You need to let her know everyone is nervous about new things and the unknown, but most of us are not afraid to fail, we are more afraid of the unknown. Yes it takes practice to become confident, but even the most confident people have worries and nervousness, we have just learned to go on and push through.

Each accomplishment, starting with getting up and walking into school, is a big deal. She is showing you she is trying.

Let her know that no one is perfect. Have you ever failed at anything? Do you make mistakes? Were you ever not chosen for a job, a team, a group? Share this information and let her know, you were able to move on and find success and happiness.

My husband and I always have admitted our mistakes, poor choices and failures with our child. We learned from our parents that acting like they had never made poor choices or were always winners, was not only not true, but also not realistic. Instead it made us feel anxious and not worthy.

Just tell the school that your daughter won't be taking the standardized test. Period, end of discussion. They can't retaliate against you or her for this decision.

There are a lot of kids who are not best served in a public school environment. Your daughter sounds like one of them. Is there a Waldorf or Montessori charter school in your area (or a private school, if that's in your budget)? We actually homeschool using a Waldorf curriculum, and love it. The Waldorf method believes in respecting each child's unique gifts; it doesn't sound like your daughter's school does that at all. The purpose of education should be learning, exploring subjects of interest, and being inspired. The purpose of education certainly is not to learn to cram yourself into a mold where you aren't happy and can't function. If she wants to homeschool, pull her out now and do it. She's miserable. You know best, Mom. Help get her out of this situation as soon as possible, and into a situation where she can thrive.

School is where you learn how to deal with people and situations that benefit you later in life. Taking a test teaches you how to organize your thoughts and put them on paper which helps writing college essays or reports when you are in the real work world. By stepping in and removing your daughter from situations she finds uncomfortable you are telling her that she can't do the things other children her age can do. She doesn't have to figure it out because mama will come to her rescue. You don't want to be that mom.

One of my kids had learning issues and the school wanted to opt him out of all testing because they didn't want the school totals to be brought down by any of the kids who had issues. I pushed to have him take the tests because 1) I knew he could do the work and 2) I didn't want him to think he was lesser than everyone else. In the end they had him test in a smaller setting with breaks as needed and he did fine.

So I guess my opinion is to sit her down and tell her that sometimes in life there are things we have to do that we don't want to do. If everything was fun and easy we wouldn't learn and grow into strong adults. While you understand her issues you also know that she is able to do great things and by taking the tests she will be showing the state how the school is doing at teaching all the children. She needs to figure out how to stop being upset and instead work with you to figure out how to put everything aside to do her best. Let her know that she is loved and valued but she's not a baby anymore. As a young adult she can figure this out and you are there to help if needed.

ETA

After thinking about this more I want to know what anxiety meds she is taking because if she's not being medicated it's your fault she's going through this. If she's taking meds and still getting this worked up she needs to see the psychiatrist for a med eval. If she's seeing the pediatrician for meds then she needs to make an appointment with a doctor who treats mental health issues.

AND you truly sound like the book she is reading to see how she should feel about stuff. You don't like testing and you don't like this school. She's picking up on that and showing her by your actions and what you say and she'd reacting to that.

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I have never thought it wise to do that. I have had some issues with testing in one subject. Everything else was okay but that one subject....I can flat out sit and cry, as an adult, if confronted with a question. I see blank space and my mind goes blank and there is nothing I can do about it.

I got tested for learning disabilities and I was okay. She said that I didn't have a specific glitch but that I had learned Math so differently that my math skills were carved in stone in my brain in great big deep ruts, so deep learning higher math was impossible for me.

So I'd sit in beginning algebra, a mother of an elementary school age child, and start crying because it was like trying to read a foreign language that has symbols that I didn't know.

As I worked with a special tutor I started to have teeny tiny light bulb moments where something would make sense. BUT I had nowhere for it to mesh up in my math stuff so what I was learning went into short term memory and was gone a few weeks later. Talk about frustrating.

I got open book tests, untimed tests so I got to go sit in an empty office all day if I needed to, and more. I still flunked it several times before the special tutor. I passed beginning algebra with a B. I have no idea what I did to pass the class because when I look at it now I have no idea what to do with even a simple simple algebra problem.

In this situation I truly have no idea what I'd do. I hated taking math tests and would make myself sick because anticipating the test was waaaayyy worse than the test itself.

I'd ask the psychologist what to do. I'd likely just tell her to press onward and do her best. She's right at being a teen and she needs to know that fear and crying won't get her out of life. She's afraid of growing up...life is part of growing up. So I'd not let her off the hook. What would she do for the rest of the year if they're focusing on the tests coming up? Sit quietly at her desk? Sleep all day? Stay home and watch TV? Seriously, what would she be doing if she isn't doing what her whole school is doing?

Having gone through testing in difficult situations and panic disorder/anxiety disorder, and many other school/college situations with similar issues I can say that by just going and doing it I got used to the stress and fear then it had no power over me. I still felt afraid and stressed but it didn't rule my life.

I guess what I'm thinking is that if she doesn't confront her fears while she is young and overcome them she isn't going to go to college, they give tests there and if you don't pass the tests you flunk out. It doesn't matter if you are afraid and stressed out. Even if you have a medical situation that grants you special treatment....you STILL have to take the tests and pass them or you don't pass the class.

Letting her get by and not testing is not a positive step. There may be other things they can do but she needs to confront her fears and take the tests.

I'm going to tell you what happened to me when hubby and I were in Dallas one time, going to the Dallas LDS Temple. We got stuck in horrible traffic and I panicked. I had an unbelievable all out panic attack from being stuck in traffic. I was trapped and couldn't get out and had to get out and couldn't get out OMG!!!

I started yelling at my husband to get me out of traffic and I was crying and shaking and more. He couldn't go anywhere so he yelled back at me to STOP IT! I was going to make us have an accident and get hurt. So STOP IT NOW!

I did and was almost instantly calm. I was still stressed out but I wasn't afraid anymore.

I was able to work through my anxiety/panic stuff and over time I was able to function pretty normally. I still don't speak in public in a situation where I'm stuck in front of people in a stage or platform because I am literally trapped up there and can't just get up and walk away...

So I suggest you talk to the psychologist. I think she needs to do the testing so she can get over her fear, to confront her fear, but your psychologist talks to her and knows what the outcome might be much better than I would.

I'm in Florida, too, but my kids have never been in public school (except for some virtual classes) thus we have never been subject to FCAT or the new testing scheme.

I have mixed feelings about opting out. I am completely opposed to the seemingly never-ending testing of elementary and middle school kids. To me it is illogical to claim that "well, they have to test in high school so let's get started in 3rd grade and keep it going." Most of us parents on this board were not educated that way. I took the SAT's once (as a junior?), and I made it through college and graduate school with no problems and very good grades.

With today's technology and storage capability it is possible to track a kid all the way from Kinder through college (and I believe that is the real objective of all this testing). And that record never goes away. Ultimately we will end up with a caste society if we continue down this path. Your "track record" as a student will be used to limit your options. Sorry if that sounds paranoid. Some kids are late bloomers and there are some gifts which can't be easily quantified.

On the other hand, I'm a believer of "when in Rome do as the Romans do." It's hard to derive the benefits of a system yet reject certain tenets of that system. My youngest has been homeschooling since 3rd grade, and this year he started dual enrollment at community college. It's been a great experience in many ways, but we also acknowledge that there are aspects of it which do not jibe with our style of doing things. But the benefits outweigh the negatives. It's similar to when we decided to homeschool; there are positives and negatives. We don't have any illusions of marching into community college and changing things very much.

I feel that if more parents pulled their kids completely out of the standard primary education system, the system itself would change. You could make the argument that if more parents opted out of testing, the testing regime would change too. I'm just not sure that will happen. That ship has sailed. Too many entities are involved with too much money at stake. It has very little to do with the best interests of the children involved.

If your daughter wants to finish out the year I'm not sure how much wiggle room you have here. It's probably good for her to see that all choices in life involve positives and negatives.

If you do have success with opting out, could you let us know how you went about it and how it goes?

I wish you much luck and peace with this whole issue. Good for you caring about your child and what she is experiencing, and trying to help her to the best of your ability.

Haven't done this myself, but: What does her therapist say about this? I would absolutely go first to her therapist and ask whether she should be encouraged just to try the testing or whether her current high level of anxiety means you really do need to opt her out THIS time. You can't opt her out of life, and usually I'd say to have her try, but it sounds as if her anxiety is not really under control just yet. and there is no real reason to make her worse by forcing her to take this test. Bear in mind that eventually she must take SATs and other kinds of testing to get into college, and cannot avoid that, but right now, this year, she may need to work on the overall anxiety first before starting testing. Better to opt her out in seventh grade and work hard on therapy and maybe meds, than to have her melt down medically over this test now and be panicked the next time a truly must-take test comes along.

Have you (without your child present) gone in to talk in person to her school counselor? The teachers are going to tell you your child really needs to take these tests, because the teachers are assessed based on these things, but the counselor might be a more objective resource and should be more focused on your child's overall well-being.

The counselor should be able to tell you how to opt out and whether it's being done by others (though she or he won't identify those others). If the counselor starts talking in terms of "Oh, it's no big deal, just have her do it and tell her not to worry," be sure you redirect the counselor back to the fact that your child already suffers from diagnosed anxiety and you are in the process of getting a 504 because of it, and you have no interest in how it affects the school or the teachers if she opts out of this test. You need the focus to be on her, and the testing is ratcheting up her anxiety.

The counseling staff should be fully aware of her anxiety issues and the 504 anyway, so I assume they know about her issues--? If not, I'd go talk to them ASAP. Ask very directly: Will she be penalized in any way if you opt out, and what is the next step if you feel she IS being singled out or penalized by any teacher? Since you say some teachers are not sensitive as you've observed, my main concern would be to prevent any teachers from somehow "taking it out" on your child after the fact if she does not take the test. I would want assurance that while other kids are doing the testing, she has something constructive to do but is not made to feel it's punitive, and that it's kept confidential that she is opted out because of anxiety.

i think you should let her test. why? because there will be testing from now on til after college. she can't opt out of those. she may not understand right now that this testing is done to 'test' teachers. she will understand it when results come in, no matter what they are.
i also think you can help her out a little bit. what i mean is there is such thing as being coddled too much. kids can't choose what they can and cannot do. she is getting an education.
ps my kids have been taking state tests since 3rd grade. they stress a lot during the week of testing. i keep them in check reminding them daily during that period that no matter what the results they are doing great. they have consistently scored in 95th percentile or higher.