After a limited testing run last year, area schools report that the statewide ELA testing for third through eighth graders is back to normal this year.

ELA, or English Language Arts, testing across the state started on Tuesday and was completed Wednesday. Mathematics state exams for third through eighth grades are scheduled for Tuesday, April 26, through Thursday, April 28.

Panama Central School District Superintendent Bert Lictus said only the first part of the state ELA exam was held last year. This year, both books 1 and 2 will be administered. Lictus said the exams are “back to the way it was pre-COVID.”

In previous years, parents have refused the state testing, citing complaints such as overtesting, and inclusion of the testing scores in teacher evaluations. After changes were made in 2016, opting out of testing decreased in the local area.

Lictus said Panama has never had many opt-outs of testing in previous years and expects that to continue going forward.

“(Testing) will be another piece of the puzzle when we review data to help us inform instruction,” he said.

Bemus Point Central School Superintendent Joseph Reyda said his district encourages all parents to “have their children take part in these assessments.”

“It’s part of a series of tools that we use to help identify what each child still needs to learn,” Reyda said. “It’s also helpful for us to determine what instructional lessons need to be revised, added or taken away at each grade level. We use the results of the assessments to help identify what students are missing so that we can help them fill in these gaps as quickly and efficiently as possible. We also use the overall grade-level results to help evaluate our ELA grade-level curriculum and instructional practices. Since every child and grade level is different, we must always be working to improve what we do to teach students.”

Reyda said Bemus Point was able to offer the assessments last year as an “optional assessment.”

“This year, these tests must be presented to every student in these grade levels,” he said. “The grade-level ELA tests will be following the same format as in previous years. Each grade level has its own set of ELA standards. Essentially, it’s a set of specific expectations for writing, reading, speaking, listening and language.”

Ann Morrison, Sherman Central School pre-K through 12th grade principal, said the testing appeared to go well in the district this week.

“I don’t want to say everything is quote-unquote back to normal — but, everything seems to be going as smoothly as it was in the spring of 2019,” Morrison said.

She added the district isn’t seeing as many opt-outs as it had in the past.

Morrison said the testing covers various skills and measures student achievement in those areas.

“It measures a wide range – it measures their reading comprehension, it measures their ability to answer questions based off of a test, and then it also has them analyze what they’ve read between passages and provide a written response,” she said. “I feel like they feel prepared for the exam. They seem confident and prepared. I don’t think there’s a lot of anxiety or hesitation that has sometimes surrounded these exams. I’m not seeing or feeling that in the hallways today.”

Morrison said there is a gap of time between testing and when the district receives the testing results. Normally, the results are provided at the end of August or the beginning of September, she said.

“We receive district-level reports that do a comparative analysis between individual districts and they’ll separate out the building between the high school and elementary school grades. They’ll do a comparison of how we did in the county, how we did in the region and then at each grade level, and it breaks it down by standards as well. There is a lot of data we get back, and then, there are the personalized reports we are then able to send home to families.”