Districts warn parents: Don't opt out of state tests

School districts, fearing financial repercussions if too many students refuse to take state tests next week, are urging parents to reconsider the decision to opt out.

There are no hard numbers available to indicate just how many students will refuse to sit for state tests on Tuesday, though more than 60,000 students statewide opted out last year, compared to the 1.1 million students who took the tests.

Brian Monahan, interim superintendent of the Mahopac Central school district in Putnam County, said this year his district is anticipating that 20 percent of elementary students and 30 percent of middle school students won't take the exams.

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The numbers have grown so much, Monahan said, that it's becoming a "challenge" to find space for opted-out students to read while their peers take the exams. At least one school will use its gymnasium to accommodate the crowd, he said.

In response, the state Education Department has said districts with a student participation rate lower than 95 percent could face potentially significant consequences.

Related: What you need to know about opting out of state tests

Low-performing schools might be subject to increased state oversight and a loss of federal funding. For high-performing schools, it could mean the loss of funding and reputation.

George Stone, Lakeland superintendent, said it could amount to a loss of $3 million in Title I and special education funding. Jonathan Ross, Blind Brook interim superintendent, wrote in a letter to parents Friday that state aid could be withheld if fewer than 95 percent of students participated in the exams.

But some say superintendents are spreading misinformation.

"As long as schools fulfill their legal mandate to offer the tests to all students, there is no mechanism that would allow the withholding of state or federal aid to a school district when the district fails to meet the 95 percent participation requirement due test refusal," according to Lisa Rudley, co-founder of NYS Allies for Public Education, a parent and educator advocacy group which has been encouraging parents to opt out.

The state Education Department said it had the power to withhold funding, though details on how that would work were not available.

"The U.S. Department of Education has made clear that when a district fails to ensure that students participate in required state assessments, the state education agency is expected to consider imposing sanctions on that district, including — in the most egregious cases — withholding programmatic funds," spokesman Jonathan Burman said.

"However," Burman added, "the real impact of opting out is that we lose the chance — at both the state and the local level — to learn about the progress of our students and their schools. That loss is immediate and it is permanent."

The movement to opt out of the Common Core-aligned state assessments scheduled to begin Tuesday is being encouraged by both teachers unions and advocacy groups. The NYS Allies for Public Education has purchased advertising space on Westchester County Bee Line Buses for banners that read: "More Teaching, Less Testing. Refuse the NYS Common Core Tests."

"What has added to the confusion related to this topic is the position assumed by several advocacy groups who have developed templates of documents for parental use in refusal of testing for their children," Florence O'Connor, deputy superintendent of the Yorktown school district, wrote in a letter to parents. "We would never desire to be penalized and labeled as a school district that failed to make adequate yearly progress."

Ross wrote in his letter to Blind Brook parents Friday that more than 5 percent of the district's students had indicated an intention to opt out.

"If they do not reconsider, or if more parents also 'opt out,' the New York State Education Department may choose to penalize Blind Brook," Ross wrote. "The state also may designate our elementary school and/or middle school as a 'School in Need of Improvement' and impose an 'improvement plan' which would require re-allocation of financial and educational resources to comply with such a plan. This could be significantly detrimental to our current educational program for all students."

Ross said that if parents wanted to express their displeasure with state-mandated tests, other methods of expression might do no harm to the school district. He urged parents to "send a message" by writing to legislators instead of refusing to take the tests.

Meanwhile, Karen Magee, president of the New York State United Teachers union, has been vocal in encouraging parents to opt out of the state tests, citing the relationship of test results to teacher evaluations. Some local teachers' unions, including those in Ramapo and Mahopac, have adopted resolutions supporting the parents' rights to refuse the tests.

In the Lakeland school district, Stone said he was worried participation was going to be "way under 95 percent," with the number of families opting out of the tests "growing by the minute."

"Parents have received information from many sources saying no loss of state aid," said Stone. "It is too late at this point; people only think it is 'scare' tactics. At that point, if we lost Title I and Special Education, many positions and programs would see significant cuts."

Twitter: @Swapna Venugopal