news-record.com

High school exams will take a back seat to the presidential inauguration this year. End of Course testing will begin a day earlier and resume a day later to accommodate anticipated high interest in the historic oath of office, school officials said.

"We started getting calls from principals concerned there are going to be large groups of students who are going ot want to take part in the presidential inauguration," said John Elridge, instructional improvement officer for high schools.

The decision to change the testing dates came last week. Elridge said principals should have notified parents through phone calls or updating the school's Web site.

Testing in traditional high schools was originally scheduled for Jan. 20-23. School officials revised that schedule last week to begin testing on Jan. 16 then resume Jan. 21-23. Students are off on that Monday to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They will now have the following day, Jan. 20, the presidential inauguration day, to review for the week's tests.

Elridge said there was already concern the three-day weekend would put too much time between reviews and testing but concerns about mass absenteeism because of the inauguration was the tipping point. Elridge said in hindsight the decision should have been made sooner.

"Making kids choose between a state test and the inauguration, we just didn't want to go there," he said.

Board member Garth Hebert said he understands changing the schedule but was disappointed the board knew nothing about it.

"I think it's a little ridiculous that they had months to plan this and it's so last minute like this," he said. "I would have thought the board would have been given the courtesy of having it brought up to us."

Board members Kris Cooke and Paul Daniels declined to comment on the matter, citing they had no knowledge of the change. No other board members could be reached for comment.