CHENANGO COUNTY – Otselic Valley students may feel a little left out today. Their school is the only one of Chenango County’s nine public school districts which decided to stay open despite the winter storm sweeping the region.
But while OV students may be jealous now, it will be the other way around in June, when everyone else has to make up the Regents examinations they couldn’t take today.
“According to regulations, if school is closed, students are not allowed to come in and take the exam,” explained Randy Squier, superintendent at the Oxford Central School District.
And to make maters worse, the state mandated tests have a rigid administration schedule.
“The state does not have a make up test available,” said Norwich Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan. According to the administrator, this is to ensure test security.
What will this mean for students who will miss their Foreign Languages or Earth Science Regents today?
“If it is a normal one day exam, they will have to take the exam during the next Regents exam week (in June),” explained Unadilla Valley Superintendent Bob Mackey. “The state has no contingencies in place other than for seniors who may be eligible to make up an exam during the component re-testing period later in the spring.”
The news is even worse for students who took the first half of the Comprehensive English exam yesterday.
“If it is a two day exam and they have completed day one, they will need to start over during the next Regents examination week,” Mackey explained, which means their efforts yesterday were for naught.
Despite the inconvenience of a Regents week snow day, these local administrators said the exam wasn’t even a factor in the decision making process of whether or not to cancel school.
“Our criteria never changes; our number one priority is the safety of the students,” said O’Sullivan.
Mackey echoed his colleague’s response.
“We still follow the same process of checking with each township on road conditions and contacting neighboring schools,” he explained. “Our main objective is to determine if it is safe to transport students to school and that is the major consideration when determining if we will open on time, delay, or close.”
Oxford’s top administrator agreed that safety was the primary concern for deciding whether or not to close school. As of yesterday, Squier said he was still hoping that a delayed opening would be sufficient to avoid the weather. According to him, even a three-hour delay would have allowed students to take the test.
“You can delay the administration of the test by a couple of hours,” explained O’Sullivan. But with the storm expected to continue, and worsen, as the day progresses, none of the area’s schools chose to delay school.
There could be hope of another option for students if a large number of districts across the state are closed.
“The state can offer a make-up test. They’ve done this in the past,” said Squier, “The problem is January exams are not as ‘big’ as June exams, since not many schools are semestered in New York State. So that would be up to State Ed to decide. We would call them and request this to happen.”
“It is up to the commissioner of Education in NY State to make the determination of any changes in state policy and procedure around the regents exams,” agreed Mackey. Typically, he added, no change is made if the exam has already been administered elsewhere, but there is a possibility that the commissioner could either grant credit for students if a district final is administered or set a re-testing date.
If students do have to wait until June to resit their exams, districts will need to organize review classes and other review classes to get them ready all over again.
“[We] will provide the necessary support to help students review and prepare for the exams,” said Squier. “I know the High School teachers will do whatever it takes to help students be successful.”
Another concern for districts is the dwindling number of snow days built into their calendar.
“We have four left at this point,” Mackey reported yesterday. UV already has a contingency plan in place for how they could use vacation days as needed to make up the difference.
The situation will be even more dire at Oxford, where today’s snow day leaves the district with only one remaining. The item was discussed at a school board meeting earlier this month and will likely mean a shortening of winter recess, scheduled to begin on Feb. 16.
“Our plan will be in the February newsletter,” Squier said.