Following confusion over the layout of the new New Jersey Graduation Proficiency Assessment platform, the state is offering retakes to students who felt their test scores were not reflective of their skills.
On March 16, juniors at Delaware Valley Regional High School took the English Language Arts Reading component of the NJGPA. A new testing platform, Cambium Assessment, was used by the state. Unclear instructions led to a large portion of students submitting their test at the 75-minute halfway mark, rather than the full 150 minutes of total testing time.
“The script that we were provided with, instructions were a little bit difficult to follow,” Principal Michael Kays said at an last-minute junior class meeting. “It wasn’t just a Del Val concern, it was a statewide concern.”
The state of New Jersey announced on Wednesday, March 25 that students would be offered an opportunity to retake the first section of the assessment.
The state deadline for any testing is on Wednesday, April 1. At Del Val, the students’ deadline to decide about retaking the exam will be at 3 p.m. on Friday, March 27. After the juniors class meeting ended, they have a total of 26 hours to decide if they would like to void their previous result and retake the test.
“I’m going to send a Google Form to you this afternoon,” Supervisor of Careers, Colleges and Assessment Kristina Sterbenc said. “If you want to do the retake, you need to complete that Google Form by 3 o’clock tomorrow.”
Within the Google Form, which was sent to all Del Val juniors’ emails, students must agree to voiding their original test results and provide a parent or guardian email. Students will not be informed of their first results if they choose to retake the assessment.
“This is a blind opportunity,” Sterbenc said. “The tests have not been scored, so what you need to decide is: do you feel your scores are going to be adversely affected because you rushed through trying to get through all of the questions before the 10-minute break? If you feel that they were not, then you do not have to do the retest.”
Out of four classrooms of surveyed juniors, only two students said they planned to retake the assessment.
“It was pretty hard to understand what the teachers were saying, and it wasn’t just me, it was my whole class who felt this way,” junior Jeremy Scott said. “I’m retaking the assessment because I feel like I could do a lot better than I did, because I was only 60% of the way through it, and I definitely rushed toward the end to just get it done.
The majority of students did not feel the retake would be beneficial or necessary.
“I thought the directions were confusing, but I think my grade won’t change regardless if I sped through it the first half or not, so I’m not retaking it,” junior Oscar Arrieta said.
