SCHEDULING: Due to wacky scheduling, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) tests were unnecessarily placed around the heat of Advanced Placement (AP) tests.
By Valeria Carrillo, Opinions Editor
The end of April and the entire month of May comprised extremely busy schedules for a majority of students. AP tests were right around the corner. Spring season sports such as track, baseball, softball and golf were in the middle of their seasons. Juniors were studying not only for their regular-course tests but also for the SAT, the ACT or both. In May, teachers normally wrap up the school year in order to review for semester finals, but this year, a new element was added to the April and May stress pile: the SBAC.
Though only juniors are required to take the SBAC, the test alters the school schedule for everyone. A minimum of two hours is required to complete each of the four different sections of the test. High schools around Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) have created various ways to fit the testing into the last months of the 2015 school year. Poly High School adopted the common schedule that includes two testing days for one period with each testing session two hours long. Altogether, testing makes for 12 school days with altered schedules. However, the SBAC testing was split and separated by two weeks to allow AP testing to take place uninterrupted.
The entire SBAC schedule is completely inconvenient for students and teachers alike. While the students who are not taking the test may use the longer periods as study halls, the rest of the day hinges on being either minimally productive or significantly wasteful. Cheyenne Aplon (11), who is enrolled in multiple AP classes and is on Poly’s track and field varsity team, believes the schedule has made it “ridiculous to manage my time and focus.” Since the periods are shortened by about 15 minutes, the teacher may not be able to complete a full lesson plan. AP teachers lost the luxury of meeting up with their students to prepare them for their respective AP Tests, and the break the SBAC must take due to AP testing only added to the conflict.
As a junior last year, the experience of the SBAC was tiresome, but my class was able to finish the process in less than a month. Additionally, the tests were placed earlier in the spring and did not interfere with other testing. Although it is a better idea to place the SBAC after the AP tests, there is not enough time to accommodate the testing schedule and prepare for final exams; therefore, a more proper solution would be to give the SBAC exams earlier in the year since the testing window stretches back to March. Creating a block schedule in which only three classes are attended during the day with almost two full class periods and a testing period, like Martin Luther King High School, allows the day to be more productive and gives non-testing students a reason to attend school during those days.
RUSD and Poly High School are continuing to experiment with different testing schedules to find the perfect fit for the SBAC, which will likely remain for quite some time. Even though the hectic two-day, two-hour schedule may be considered effective, placing the testing weeks close to the last month of the school year added needless tension. By moving the SBAC test up a couple of weeks earlier and even creating a testing block schedule, away from the AP Exams, the last quarter of the school year would flow more smoothly.