Polk County Public Schools will take advantage of some flexibility permitted by the Florida Department of Education and will not use state end-of-course exam results in algebra and geometry when calculating student grades for the 2014-2015 school year.
“The results of these new exams are still being studied, and it has not yet been determined whether they will provide a valid assessment of student performance,” said Heather Wright, Senior Director of Assessment, Accountability & Evaluation with Polk County Public Schools.
The Florida Department of Education released a memorandum on Monday, which indicates that assessment results in Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry will not be available this year in a timely manner. An independent group has been tasked with evaluating whether the assessment results are valid. This study has not yet been completed.
“In order to protect our students from having their grades impacted by an assessment with results that are still being studied, we will take advantage of some additional flexibility allowed by the Florida Department of Education,” Wright said.
Polk County Public Schools will not count Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry assessment results as 30 percent of the students’ grades for the 2014-2015 school year. Rather, the school district will calculate students’ final grades based on 50 percent for semester one and 50 percent for semester two.
“We believe this is a fair approach toward calculating students’ grades for the 2014-2015 school year,” Wright said. “We will not re-calculate the students’ grades after the Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry results are released, and the validity study is completed.”
For the 2015-2016 school year, provided there is a positive outcome with this validity study, the school district will resume counting end-of-course exam results in algebra and geometry as 30 percent of the student grade, to comply with Florida statutes.
It is important to note that end-of-course exam results for U.S. History, Biology 1, and Civics will still be used to calculate student grades for the 2014-2015 school year. These assessments are not the subject of a validity study, and their results will still count as 30 percent of the course grade, per state statute.
