Background
This is a series of memories from a long educational career that took some interesting twists and turns.
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On Monday, July 19, 2021, Suffolk Public School's Summer Academy, formerly known as the SOL Academy, began promptly at 7:30 a.m. Even though three girls and two boys were assigned to my class, the boys were no shows. All classes were required to be in-person, therefore the boys could not join virtually.
Each student was to arrive in class with a charged Chromebook. (All secondary students enrolled in our system are allowed to keep their Chromebooks from the time they are distributed until the week they are to graduate.) One of my former students arrived without hers, which was highly unusual. Rather than have her miss any class, I allowed her to use the one assigned to me for the Summer Academy. As it turned out, hers was malfunctioning and she had not been able to have it replaced prior to the beginning of class.
Just before our break at 10, one of the testing coordinators came by to check on attendance. Since neither of the boys had appeared, Mrs. L said they would be dropped from the roll. She added that the passing scores for the SOL would be the same as they were at the end of the school year: 350. I passed that information on to my girls but told them we were going to shoot for the standard minimum passing score of 400.
On Wednesday, a young man entered the room without a pass. Since he was not on my original roll and had already missed two days, I told him he had to leave. Without argument, he gathered his things and headed out the door. About that time, my conscience said, You didn't even give him a chance to explain himself. I called out to him and asked him to wait for me to meet with him. Long story short, his school had not done their due diligence so a decision was made to allow him to attend. It was not a problem.
After five days of 4.25 hours of instruction/day for the girls and three of those for the young man, these students took the VA State Algebra 1 SOL on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. There was no doubt in my mind that all of them would pass. I brought them breakfast from Chick-fil-A to ensure they had breakfast before testing. These students had quickly become my children.
Scores began coming in around 11:15 a.m. I was ecstatic: 391, 399, 399, 407. Then I learned that not all scores are equal. Two of the girls had transferred to Suffolk from out-of-state during the 2020-2021 school term. Each had been in 4 X 4 schools, meaning students take 4 courses the first semester, then another 4 second semester. Unfortunately, each had completed their Algebra 1 classes in the state from which they transferred. As a result, neither could be granted the "COVID Test" designation allowing them to pass with a 350. Instead, they were required to return to school on Wednesday, July 28th for a day of remediation so they could retest on July 29th, which they did. The new scores? 397 and 428.
I cannot make sense of this for the lone student who was not successful according to the rule we did not know about until after the fact. How different can Algebra 1 be in either North Carolina or Indiana that students who pass it there must score higher on this year's SOL test than those who passed it in Virginia? Didn't COVID affect those states, also? Would it have made a difference if those students had known from day 1 that they had to make a score of 400 or better?
Sometimes the numbers just don't add up!
