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SALT LAKE CITY — Twenty-eight school districts and public charter schools have asked the Utah State Board of Education to waive completion of the state-required civics test on behalf of hundreds of high school seniors.
State law requires the students to pass a civics test to earn their high school diploma.
However, the State School Board is scheduled to consider waivers on behalf of more than 3,000 students, with many of the requests tied to students’ inability to access the test or needed instruction during the “soft closure” of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Statewide, the Class of 2020 includes more than 47,700 public school students so waiver requests thus far comprise about 6% of the state’s graduating seniors. The board is scheduled to address the requests during its meeting Thursday.
According to school board documents, Alpine School District requested waivers on behalf of 786 students citing concern about students’ access to technology, social and emotional well-being, students with special needs and those otherwise “overwhelmed with learning environment and communication abilities.”
Others, like Granite School District, pointed to an inability to conduct the test due to social distancing requirements put in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Granite District is seeking waivers on behalf of 219 students.
“This included all 76 self-contained seriously intellectually disabled students and many English-learning students. Other students were unable to complete the requirement although options were provided to take the requirement online in an unproctored environment or in a paper-and-pencil format,” according to state board documents.
Many schools cited mounting student stress due to distance learning while others said students did not have reliable access to technology to complete the classes they need to pass the test.
Still other schools requested waivers for students they have been unable to contact since in-school learning was dismissed in mid-March.
“We attempted through email, Google classroom, phone calls from teachers, and finally daily phone calls from aides. Some of these did not answer the phone, one’s mother said he is living out of state, another had moved out of the home and the parent did not know where he was living. We offered the test daily for two weeks with consistent attempts to contact these students,” said the waiver request on behalf of seven students from Carbon High School.
Washington School District asked for a waiver for 248 students, noting that “schools report there are families that have made no attempt to interact with digital curriculum since building shutdown. Emails, calls, texts, and — in some rare cases— home visits, have gone unanswered.”
Related:
Utah’s State School Board considers more rule waivers to address school dismissals necessitated by pandemic
From teacher evaluations to the civics test high school seniors must pass to earn their diplomas, the Utah State Board of Education on Thursday addressed numerous issues affected by the ongoing school dismissal due to the COVID-19 pandemic.District officials are concerned that some families lack internet access, have computers that are unreliable and lack capacity or that students have babysitting duties or they need to go to work to support their families.
“Many students are still working through this course and were intending on taking the test in May. This waiver deadline may have created some difficulties. We intend to continue to offer the test beyond the waiver deadline, up to the day diplomas are awarded. In past years we have had a 100% participation and pass rate,” Washington School District officials stated.
The Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind requested waivers on behalf of two students. “Due to their disabilities they would need to be tested in person. They live further out so bringing them in for an in-person test is difficult and unreasonable given current conditions,” the request states.
The civics test requirement has been in place since 2015, when Utah lawmakers voted to require public high school students to pass a 50-question basic civics test before graduating.
The bill’s sponsor, former Sen. Howard Stephenson, argued that students would be filled with a “sense of pride” to face the same questions that immigrants and refugees encounter on their citizenship test.
Earlier this year, the Utah Legislature considered HB152, which sought to repeal that requirement. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Elizabeth Weight, D-West Valley City, was defeated in the Utah House.
Weight argued the testing requirement has detracted from civics education and frustrated educators.
Lawmakers passed HB334, which creates a three-year civic engagement pilot program to evaluate the benefits of and methods for implementing a civic engagement project requirement for high school graduation.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Dan Johnson, R-Logan, does not eliminate the civics test requirement.
