ST. LOUIS — Districts across Missouri welcomed back students this week for the start of the school year. The new school year begins when administrators are searching for new ways to measure student success.
Dozens of schools are currently working on moving away from traditional standardized tests.
Parkway School assistant superintendent Kevin Beckner said he believes it's a win-win for everyone.
"We just want to do testing in a way that's going to be way more meaningful, valuable and actionable for everybody, so that we can help our students in a way that right now the state test doesn't allow us to do," he said.
As the 2023 school year kicks into gear, districts are monitoring new ways to grade student growth, according to Ritenour School District superintendent Chris Kilbride.
"The fact that we're going to be monitoring student learning every day, on an ongoing basis throughout the year and having checks, perhaps, four times throughout the year. We believe it will give students a better chance to more accurately show what they know," he said.
Instead of one high-stakes test at the end of the year, which normally takes months to get results back, Kilbride said districts are going to evaluate students on a smaller, more frequent scale.
"If there's ongoing assessments with immediate results, it allows teachers, PLC teams and groups to make instructional decisions to better accommodate students. That's very different from what I experienced when I was a teacher," he said.
The Ritenour and Parkway school districts are two of 20 across the state of Missouri that received an 'innovation waiver' from the Missouri State Board of Education to test this out.
According to Kilbride, it puts students in the driver's seat.
"It's changing the language and the goal is not to make it more complex or more difficult, but just to be more transparent," he said.
Beckner said he believes this will not only help students succeed but also be helpful for teachers and parents.
"I know firsthand how frustrating it can be for your student to put all this effort and energy into taking a state test and then months go by before you find out how they did," he said.
As a father of three and Parkway School assistant superintendent, that's exactly what Beckner said he wants to remedy. He said the three-year waiver provides districts with a chance to prove there's a better way.
"What we are trying to do is use the work that's already in place to show that we can do a better job for our students, our families, our teachers, and make sure that students are ready and prepared by focusing on what they really need," Beckner said.
It's a possible change that districts said they believe will only set more kids up for success.
"We are hoping that in the longer term, we're creating a path where there's a new system that's going to be better for students, but it's going to take time to get there," Beckner said.
This is a pilot program for now so students in these districts must take the end-of-the-year standardized test. Districts would have to receive a federal waiver to eliminate state testing, which will take time.
The other St. Louis-area districts that received this waiver include Affton, Lindbergh, Mehlville, Pattonville and Confluence Academies charter schools.