The state assessments have been taken for many years and probably most everyone can remember preparing for the assessments in elementary school. Years later, students are still preparing for the tests.

March 15 and 16, sophomores found themselves taking the math portion of the state assessments. Assessments are a state mandated activity and are required by law to be administered.

“It’s very good preparation for the standardized tests that mean something to them, ACT, etc.,” instructor Jarett Pfannenstiel said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time to practice for them, that’s what our class time is for. Back in the day, we used to have practice for them in Academy, which made students take them much more seriously. There’s been a lot of changes, at the state level, with that test, so it’s hard to practice for the test when you don’t even know what’s going to be on it as a teacher.”

Since the math portion is over, students will soon be expected to take more, and in just a few weeks that will happen. Sophomores will complete the english assessments on March 29 – April 3, and soon after that, the juniors the social studies assessments along with science.

“The only way a student can prepare is by reading, and if they don’t comprehend what they’re reading, practice strategies to slow down, chunk the material, look at the roots and prefixes and suffixes of words to try to figure out what the nuance is of the word,” instructor Kathy Wagoner said. “The way to prepare for reading is to read.”

However, while students prepare for the assessments during class time, there isn’t much more they can do to make sure they will do well on them.

“Obviously, the class work that we do throughout the year is going to be probably the best preparation for them,” instructor Beth Schiel said. “We don’t know what they’re going to look like this year because they’re all different then what we’ve given in the past, so we don’t really have a great way to know how to prepare them.”

19ibraun@usd489.com