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WASL has schools debating commencement rules
Juanita Doyon Comment: How can they call the portfolio an alternative if it's not going to be scored until August?
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by Sara Leaming
Jordan Wirth already ordered announcements for University High School’s commencement.
And he’s hoping to mail them to friends and family for the June 7 ceremony, as well as wear the cap and gown he already paid for.
“I’ve been with the same group of people for, like, 12 years of school,” Wirth said. “I’d like to walk with them across the stage.”
And whether he will be able to do that is not just a matter of debate in the Central Valley School District, but among school districts across the state.
Wirth — who has been on U-Hi’s honor roll for maintaining above-average grades — is among roughly 15 percent of seniors in the state who haven’t passed the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. This is the first year students must pass the reading or writing portions of the WASL to graduate. Math and science requirements were pushed back to 2013 by the Legislature last year after an alarming failure rate.
Now, district officials are wondering whether students who have exhausted all their options should be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies.
Wirth, for instance, has taken the reading test four times and is working on a portfolio of work to show he knows the material. But he may not know before graduation whether his portfolio work will be good enough to satisfy state officials.
So the question remains: Should he and other students like him be allowed to walk at commencement if they have enough credits and have met all other state and district requirements? Ultimately, they won’t receive a high school diploma without passing the WASL, or some state-sanctioned alternative like a learning portfolio called a “collection of evidence.”
But these alternatives are still taking form and the rules remain unclear.
“It’s pretty hard to for us to agree to penalize kids because the system failed,” said Paul Sturm, the superintendent of the Pullman School District, where board members decided last year to allow WASL-deficient students to participate in 2008 graduation ceremonies.
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“The board just couldn’t find a compelling reason to hold them out,” Sturm said.
Spokane Public Schools administrators are just beginning to have the discussion about commencement. Officials are “caught between not wanting to penalize kids and keeping high standards,” said Superintendent Nancy Stowell.
Spokane high schools will begin offering courses for students next semester to help them complete WASL portfolios as an alternative to the test, Stowell said. But the results of those portfolios won’t be known until August, after the state has a chance to review them.
“High school principals know each of those kids by name,” Stowell said. “There are a lot of complexities, and it’s the first time we’ve been through all of this.”
The issue of whether to let students walk at graduation if they haven’t passed the WASL is being taken up by districts across the state.
“The issue is about what (commencement) symbolizes,” said Glenys Hill, superintendent of the 5,100-student Kelso School District in Cowlitz County. “If the student has satisfied all district requirements … that student is entitled to walk across the stage.”
Pullman went a step further. When that school district decided kids who haven’t passed the WASL can walk in commencement, it also changed the rules so a senior who lacks credits and plans to attend summer school can participate, as well. Otherwise, administrators decided, it wouldn’t be fair.
At a recent CV board meeting, board member Cindy McMullen said changing the rules could create “an equity issue.”
For instance, she said, some Running Start students who attend college courses while in high school have not yet taken a WASL. But they have completed all other graduation requirements. Would they be allowed to walk?
“It’s a subjective decision,” McMullen said. “And who gets to make it? We don’t want walking to mean these kids have graduated.”
As the commencement debate rages among school boards, the Legislature is considering bills which would provide more testing alternatives and assistance for struggling students. But those bills wouldn’t help this year’s struggling seniors.
U-Hi’s Wirth is one of about 67 students submitting more than 80 portfolios to the state this month. The deadline is Feb. 15.
The 17-year-old said it’s been challenging, even more so than the WASL test itself, but he feels confident his portfolio will “pass.” He said students in his class are stressed, as they prepare to submit their work to the state, because so much hinges on it.
And, the rules keep changing, he said. For example, each portfolio has to have a cover sheet, and this week the state changed a few words and the color of the cover sheet from white to green. If it’s not exact, it could be rejected.
“So everybody had to start over,” Wirth said.
“From one week to the next the target hasn’t stayed in the same place,” said Evan Sorenson, a CV administrator who has been working with the state on what is required for collections of evidence.
As of last year, when they were juniors, the district had more than 100 kids at risk of not earning a diploma because of the WASL. Through the portfolio process, there are now only 43 seniors at risk, and they’re all submitting portfolios, Sorenson told school board members last week.
“I’m surprised we haven’t had more of these seniors say ‘you know what, I give up.’” Sorenson said. “They are working very, very hard.”
— Juanita Doyon
Spokesman Review
2008-01-26
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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