SOLEDAD — Preparations are underway for the upcoming Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test at the local elementary schools.
Testing can be a scary thing. Just the word “test” can make students freeze up and forget everything they studied. Common Core is a scary thing for most parents, so some can’t even help their student study up. The SBAC test is very important for the schools and their teachers and for parents.
Administered to the third through sixth grades, the SBAC assessment lets teachers and schools know what the student has learned through the year.
At San Vicente Elementary School, the principal and staff planned a small rally to ease the students’ minds about the upcoming SBAC testing.
The test will include a writing component and multi-step mathematics questions. An example of a math question for third-graders is: Jana has 107 wooden beads and 68 glass beads. How many more wooden beads than glass beads does Jana have?
For the grammar component they have to read a couple paragraphs and then answer questions about it.
To prevent students from worrying about the test and potentially messing up their score, the rally was meant as a celebration of the test.
The Soledad High School (SHS) Aztec cheerleading squad came to the school to perform, in addition to the SHS dance squad. Both teams performed for the third- through sixth-grade students.
They played a small video that had the first grad students dancing the “Chicken Dance” along with Paws Panther the school mascot.
“We are getting students excited for our summative SBAC assessment for grades three to six,” said Michelle Farrer, interim principal of San Vicente Elementary School.
The rally included jokes from the principal and chants from the different grades regarding the upcoming test. The chants will be easy for students to recall if they’re trying to stay calm during the test.
