The Jefferson City Public Schools and Blair Oaks R-2 school districts have decided to financially support their high school juniors to let them take the ACT, in light of the fact the state will no longer fulfill that role.
Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said it cannot fund administration of the ACT - one of the chief college readiness assessments - for juniors in the 2017-18 school year because of a $4 million cut in the education budget for assessments.
State funding had first allowed for administration of the ACT to juniors in 2015, "and was sufficient to offer the opportunity again in 2016 and 2017," DESE's website said.
The boards of JCPS and Blair Oaks voted this week to approve local funding to support juniors to take the ACT - $20,000 from JCPS and $5,000 from Blair Oaks.
"Number one, for the kids that don't end up with a waiver and don't have another means to be able to take it, it provides them at least one opportunity to take it, and perhaps improve their score," JCPS Board of Education President Steve Bruce said of the advantages of having juniors be able to take the ACT.
High school students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch can request waivers to take the ACT free of charge.
JCPS' Chief of Learning Brian Shindorf said juniors are encouraged to take the test because it can help them have a clearer sense of what to expect from the test as a senior, what their strengths are and where and how they can improve; "they have the ability to start preparing over the year."
The ACT tests students in English, reading, math and science and gives a score out of a possible 36 points for each category, plus an overall composite score on the same scale.
Not all high school students are college-bound, of course; "we don't force kids to take it," Shindorf said of the ACT. He said juniors are encouraged to take either the ACT or the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery - the free assessment to determine readiness for military service.
"We've gone ahead and planned ours to do it April 3," he said of the scheduled date for when the district will have juniors take the ACT. The other ACT test date is Feb. 27.
At about $40 a test, Shindorf said the $20,000 set aside in the district's budget for this year should cover about 500 juniors' ACT expenses, although he added that given many students in the district qualify for free or reduced-price meals, their waivers will help offset the expenses of other students and stretch that budget further.
JCPS' Director of Secondary Education Gary Verslues said, as of Friday, there are 619 juniors in the district.
Shindorf added while "we know that 100 percent of them won't take it," the district does benefit from having as many students take the ACT as appropriate for their post-graduate paths.
There's a section of the Missouri School Improvement Program's Annual Performance Report for accreditation purposes that rewards school districts for having more students take the ACT.
Shindorf explained a student who does not take the test doesn't earn the district any "points;" a student who earns a composite score less than 18 earns the district a quarter-point; a score of 18-21, .75; 22-25, 1 point; and anything above a 25 is 1.25 points.
Verslues explained the point totals are factored into the college and career readiness portion of the MSIP - one of five such areas in the evaluation.
It tends to be the case, though, the more students who take the ACT, the more the average composite score of the district drops, according to the St. Louis-Post Dispatch, "since more students who may not have planned or prepared to take the test or attend college end up taking it if it's free."
Still, Bruce said he thinks people see ACT scores and don't realize the full complexity of the situation. "We do what we know is right for our kids," and that includes having opportunities to explore post-graduation options.
"These are the kinds of things I like to see the board reflecting over and spend funding on. The potential reward for our students outweighs that potentially lower aggregate score that gets reported out to the public," he added. He hopes students take advantage of the opportunity to take the exam as juniors at no cost to them and maybe find out they did better than they would have thought, pursue college more seriously and maybe even get scholarships.
Blair Oaks' Superintendent Jim Jones said his district wants to make sure all students have a post-graduate option that best suits their paths, so to that end, in addition to the ACT and the already-free option of the ASVAB, the district will also subsidize the cost of ACT WorkKeys - intended for graduates headed directly into the workforce after graduation.
The summary also said the district will revisit the funding on an annual basis.