Public school students will take the STAAR test this year, and the Wylie ISD board ap­proved a waiver at its Feb. 23 meeting to allow the process to go smoother regarding ac­commodating on-campus and remote learners.

With the waiver, non-testing students will learn from home on STAAR testing days.

The Texas Education Agen­cy approved the waiver on Jan. 20, allowing it to be pursued by school districts, which can bet­ter adhere to COVID-19 safety practices. STAAR tests require remote learners to be on campus for testing, but the waiver will not require all learners to be at school at the same time. For ex­ample, eighth-graders will work from home on April 6 while seventh-graders are on campus that day to take the writing test.

Deputy Superintendent Kim Spicer said in an email that the waiver will allow for having small numbers of students in each of the testing classrooms, enabling officials to better social distance the students. “For example, if you only have 10 testers in a room, you can spread them further apart,” she said. “To do that, you need to have those students who aren’t testing stay at home so we can use every classroom for testing and every teacher as a test ad­ministrator.”

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By Don Munsch • [email protected]