Sparks flew at a Southeast Kootenay School District 5 Advocacy Committee meeting Monday over the issue of standardized tests in the school system.

When the dust settled, the committee agreed to forward several recommendations on standardized testing for discussion at the next board meeting Dec. 8. But in a later interview, District 5 Superintendent Bill Gook said the issues are so contentious that they may not get discussed until the Board meeting n January.

The debate was ignited by a Cranbrook/Fernie District Teachers Association (CFDTA) letter to the Board asking it to support a moratorium on what the CDFTA described as “externally mandated standardized tests.”

Generally these are taken to be province-wide tests – “provincials” -- to complete graduation in the secondary grades and assessment tests in all intermediate and middle schools to see how students are progressing in Grades 4 and 7.

The latter are known as Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) tests and in recent years the B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) has pressed principals to allow parents to refuse to have their children take the FSA tests.

In the letter to the committee, Wendy Turner, president of the Cranbrook teachers local, said “our major concern is the way FSA results are being used to rank school against school and district against district using questionable manipulation of the data.” This was a reference to the controversial Fraser Institute “Report Card” issued annually based on FSA and other standardized test data.

A video critical of standardized testing was also shown to committee members.

Turner said ranking schools based on FSA data does “nothing” to improve student learning and denigrates so-called “lower ranked” schools that have unique and vibrant programs that meet the particular needs of their students.

She said the same applies in the secondary grades and on the Grade 10 science provincial in particular which results in students losing out on field trips and lab time as teachers spend an inordinate amount of time preparing students for the Grade 10 science “provincial” test.

Cranbrook Trustee Trina Ayling said lab work is important for students in science. “I honestly don’t remember a single test I took in school, but I do remember dissecting a fishes’ eye-ball.”

However, District 5 Superintendent Bill Gook warned committee members that they didn’t receive a balanced presentation. “I’d be careful before you do anything. We only heard one side of this debate. I could challenge almost everything we heard and I think we need more feedback before we go ahead.”

Sparwood Trustee Bev Bellina said she would also like more information and a more open debate on the issue. However, at the same time she said she was proud that Frank J. Mitchell Elementary School in Sparwood won a Fraser Institute Award for being the top elementary school in the province, beating out 952 other schools.

“That’s a big deal, Bellina said. I’m very proud of the students and teachers at Frank J. Mitchell Elementary,” she said in an interview after the meeting.

However, Fernie Local teachers President Steve Fairbairn took strong exception to Bellina’s comments. “I have a real issue with one school being declared better than another . . . based on one set of parameters.”

Gook called Fairbairn’s remarks about comparing schools “very inappropriate” and Bellina said after the meeting “I felt a little badly when he (Fairbairn) took it that way.”

Board chairman Frank Lento told trustees that testing might better be discussed in a closed-door meeting “because it’s so complicated and becomes very emotional.”

However, Trustee Ayling said she would prefer to see testing discussed in an open public meeting.

Lento responded with a number of points in favour of testing and said without testing students are denied the joy of achievement. “Yes, it’s a big debate. We could spend a day on it.” If trustees did that, “they might have to cancel Christmas,” quipped Cranbrook Trustee Dan Hall in response.

After more animated discussion in a similar vein, the committee agreed to send three recommendations to the Board as a whole for discussion at the next Board of Education meeting in December.

The recommendations based on the CFDTA letter were to call for a moratorium on province-wide testing and appoint a task force to further discuss the issue, appoint a local task force on assessment and call on District 5 principals to honour parents’ requests to withdraw their children from the FSA test.

It was pointed out at the meeting that some District principals are honouring parents’ wishes not to have their children take the FSA tests while other principals are requiring all students to take the tests regardless of parents’ wishes.

Turner says every year more parents are asking that their children be excused from the tests both in District 5 and the rest of the province. The participation rate of students taking the tests has fallen to about 85 per cent, she said.

However Gook said he wasn’t so sure about Turner’s figures. “If that’s true, I’d be surprised.” The Superintendent added he regretted that parents and students are being caught in the middle of the testing dispute.

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