Dr. Ted Horrell, superintendent of Lakeland School System (LSS), reported on the LSS Facebook site yesterday (4.19.18), the following information:
“We are hopeful that these measures by our state legislature will take some of the pressure off of our teachers, students, and administrators.
“There is no testing scheduled at LMPS on Friday (4.20.18) (LES will test tomorrow), but we will resume next week in what we hope is a smooth, successful online test administration. It’s also our hope that our unbelievably resilient and hardworking students continue to do their best to show what they’ve learned to the extent that they possibly can.
“Students and teachers…we are proud of you and are so impressed by the way you have handled things so far! Go Lions!”
Dr. Horrell was referring to the Tennessee General Assembly which approved a measure to move this years’ testing from accountability systems for students, teachers, schools and districts.
In a Twitter post, Rep. Eddie Smith of Knoxville, one of the bill’s sponsors, said, “”I just passed a conference committee report on the House Floor to hold teachers harmless, students harmless, prevent the test data from being used in a schools A-F grade and prevent schools from being put on the priority list or ASD because of TN Ready failures.”
The other sponsor of the bill was Sen. Dolores Gresham of Somerville. Gov. Bill Haslam is expected to sign the legislation.
The TNReady testing started in Lakeland and around the state Monday (4.16.18), but was halted because of statewide failures of the Tennessee online testing platform. The online platform was used at LMPS (Lakeland Middle Preparatory School) where the testing was halted. Because LES (Lakeland Elementary School) students are taking their TN Ready tests using paper and pencil, the issues did not impact testing there.
