As the 2022 school year starts coming to an end, academic and state testing agencies are starting to prepare for next year’s standardized testing. The STAAR agency or State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness agency will be rolling out an experimental ELA 1 field test for all freshmen students attending VMHS enrolled in an English 1 class. 

“The purpose of this is every year, the state switches for example from TAKS test to STAAR test, they have to give a field test because they want to see if they’re making the test too difficult or not difficult enough, so they take the performance from students tested, and they analyze that data to make some tweaks to the assessment before its officially given the next year,” Dean Raymond Garza said. 

There’s also some relief for students who are taking the test, as the test will not count towards anything or harm anything on a student’s records at all. 

“This is in no way going to hurt any of the students in any way, and as a matter of fact the only one who will be able to see test results will be the Texas Education Agency,” Garza said. 

The testing will be held on Wednesday, February 16th at precisely 9:00 a.m. and will be taken in the large gymnasiums. Locator lists will be posted throughout the school, and all students who will not test will follow a normal bell schedule as usual.