'Opt-outs' increases halt in Valley Stream this year

Last year, the amount of Valley Stream parents who opted their children in grades three through eight out of the statewide English Language Arts test nearly doubled. This year, however, the rates remained relatively stagnant among the four Valley Stream school districts.

In District 24, 56 percent eligible students opted out of the ELA test that began on March 28 — the same as last year.

The other three districts had slight declines in the number of students who opted out. The Central High School District had a 52 percent opt out rate — down 1 percent from last year. District 13 had a 40 percent opt out rate — down 3 percent. The greatest change in opt-out rates occurred in District 30, where just 14 percent of students opted out — a decrease of 4 percent from last year.

Nicholas Stirling, superintendent of District 30, cited the district’s efforts to educate parents about the exam as a reason for the district’s low opt-out rate. According to Stirling, the district assured parents that the teachers in the district would not overemphasize the test in their lesson plans, and that the test has been changed since last year.

“The parents have a very clear understanding of what the tests are about,” Stirling said.

Bill Heidenreich, superintendent of the Central High School District, thought that the state made significant changes to Common Core this year.

“When you lose the confidence of the people, it takes a long time to get it back,” Heidenreich said, adding that he thinks that some parents continue to opt their children out of the tests because “it’s just ingrained in what they do.”

Parents who opted their children out of these tests, however, said that the tests remained inappropriate for the grade levels they are administered to, and that they put unnecessary stress on the students.

“The stress on kids that were as young as 8 years old, you could actually see it,” Jeanette Deutermann, of Bellmore, said at a rally on March 24. About 100 people gathered in Mineola to protest a draft of the New York State budget that would increase funding for charter schools — but some were also protesting standardized testing.

Deutermann, who started the opt-out movement on Long Island, said that she thinks the tests are judging students unfairly. “Testing and all this stuff is just a measurement of income-level,” Deutermann said. “So of course schools in inner-cities are going to struggle, they’re working with very high-needs students.”

Maribel Canestro, of Valley Stream, also opted her children out of the tests because she believes there is too much standardized testing in the schools.

“They’re turning our classrooms into testing factories,” she said.

The state math exams begin May 2.