PARCC It Is for Hamilton-Wenham Schools in 2016

Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District students will take PARCC instead of MCAS in 2016.

On Thursday night, the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School Committee voted 5-0 with two abstentions to administer PARCC instead of MCAS to students in grades three through eight in 2016 ahead of the full state transition to a hybrid MCAS-PARCC combination test in 2017.

HWRSD had the option to continue with MCAS testing for another year or switch to a ”paper and pencil” version or computer-based version of the PARCC test because the district continued ahead with MCAS testing in 2015 instead of opting for PARCC as several district throughout the state did.

Harvey told board members Thursday that the technology is not yet in place in the district to administer the computer-based test.

In mid-November, the state board of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to adopt a new, revised MCAS exam (MCAS 2.0) made up of both PARCC test items and locally-developed questions beginning in the spring of 2017. That new test will be administered statewide beginning in spring 2017, according to an update from HWRSD Superintendent Michael Harvey.

With that decision, the DESE “strongly recommended” that districts go ahead and administer PARCC in 2016 in order to help students and teachers prepare for the full transition to the new test.

You can read more about the Harvey’s recommendation in this blog post. You can also watch his presentation and the subsequent vote of the school committee thanks to HWCAM.org.