Why Are So Many Kids Opting Out of Standardized Tests? - Granite Grok

Why Are So Many Kids Opting Out of Standardized Tests?

Manchester School DIstrict - MSD logo

Believe it or not, the Manchester NH SAS test scores have dropped yet again. Instead of recovering from the COVID Learning Loss, we are falling further behind.

Or are we? I have been speaking at the public comment portion of the School Board meetings, Last year, it was about the mask mandate, and this year it is about the holes in their Transgender policy, which allows boys in the girl’s locker room. It also allows boys to play on the girls’ sports teams. There is no gatekeeper for these policies. Any boy at any time can decide they want to identify as a girl, and they are in.

I respect Transgender individuals, but the School Board has left the door wide open for anyone to abuse it. In North Carolina, a biological boy playing on a girls’ volleyball team spiked the ball directly in the opposing girl’s face at such a tremendous speed (~70 mph) that he knocked her out, and she lay on the floor lifeless. Weeks later, she still had long-term concussion symptoms, including vision impairment.

The Manchester School Board also wants to enable teachers to have private gender change discussions with our youngest children without parental knowledge. There is no age restriction for this “right” they have gifted teachers. I know we have many WONDERFUL teachers in Manchester. But it only takes one bad teacher to destroy the lives of many innocent children.

Don’t you dare call me Transphobic. When I hear people poking fun at Transgender people in public, I yell at them to stop and show more respect. They are all human. But no one is looking out for our kids because the School Board is doing everything possible to lock us out.

We now have a pornographic comic book in the Bow schools sitting on the counter in classrooms. The images are too graphic to show, as they include images of children performing oral sex. These hidden books are appearing everywhere because of a truckload of books “anonymously” donated to schools all over the country. Manchester also received many books donated anonymously. Who is vetting these books?

I may be the only parent speaking at the School Board meetings most of the time, but I believe many other parents are speaking up in another way. The SAS test scores count every absent child as a zero score if the total absences are more than 5%. An absence can be a child present in school who opts out of the test. That means many zeros were counted in the scores, which could partially explain the drop in overall test scores.

Why are so many kids opting out of standardized tests? I believe it is because parents no longer trust the school system to do right by them and their children. Over the past four years, the SEL and CRT-based policies pushed by the School Board have been untrustworthy at best. If the School Board doesn’t want to lose accreditation and its reputation, they need to bring parents back into the equation. On everything. They need to change their policies immediately. Transgender lawsuit or not. Parents are speaking up in a more effective way than my speeches.

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