The Lyon County School District is preparing to ask the Nevada Department of Education to allow high school students to choose from multiple assessments for graduation, arguing that the state’s current requirement doesn’t reflect the needs or career paths of today’s students.
The proposal, presented by Dayton High School principal Julie Bumgardner and Board of Trustees President Tom Hendrix, would give students the option of taking the ACT, the ACT WorkKeys Assessments or the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), three assessments that measure different skill sets and align them with different post-graduation goals.
Bumgardner said the idea took shape last spring after Dayton High piloted the ACT WorkKeys exam.
“It was very eye-opening for me as an administrator to see students actually buy into an assessment,” she told the board.
During a walkthrough, Hendrix asked Bumgardner how ACT WorkKeys was going.
“We started talking, and that just kind of planted this seed of what if kids had a choice, an option to choose between three different assessments based off of their career path?” Bumgardner said.
Nevada is one of only eight states that requires all students to take the ACT for graduation, even though they are not required to pass it.
“As a result, we have one of the lowest scores on that test,” Hendrix said.
Bumgardner said the ACT was never designed to measure every student’s strengths, particularly those pursuing career and technical education. She pointed to Pennsylvania and Mississippi, two states that already allow students to choose among multiple assessments and have completed the work showing how scores align across tests.
“I think this benefits our students greatly, and it also gives students control of their path and that's what we're about, is that student ownership of their learning and them controlling their path,” Bumgardner said.
She said it would also be a win for the state by changing how proficiency is measured and would improve the state’s economic standing and education rankings.
“It’s going to help us attract high-quality teachers and all these things, and most importantly, it's going to get kids to feel successful and buy into their future,” she said.
Bumgardner said she, Dayton High vice principal David Palmer and Hendrix developed a PowerPoint that they would like to present to the State Department of Education.
The trustees agreed and unanimously approved a motion to present the idea to the State Department of Education. Trustee Darin Farr suggested they take it a step further and present it to the Nevada Association of School Boards and the Nevada Association of School Superintendents to ask for their support.
“We complain about what the state's doing to us, what legislature's doing to us, but if we don't take an active role and come unified, then it's going to continue to happen to us,” Superintendent Tim Logan said. “So, thank you for bringing this forward, both of you.”
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