I was successful of opting both sons 7th and 8th graders out this year again at Somerset ISD. Did so since the beginning of the year and although principal tried to give me a hard time at the beginning of the year of opting out of the tutoring classes offered to those who didn’t pass STAAR (can’t remember what they’re called lol), I stood my ground and he was removed within a day. My son will be a freshman next year and the education administrator I think that was what she said was her position in the district said he can’t opt out in high school. I laughed and told her it was lies and that I’d get to that when my son enters hs in the fall. Thank you and to this wonderful group, I’ve gotten more knowledge than I ever knew was available to parents
– I submitted the opt out letter to the school on Monday.
– I received a generic response letter from the school on Wednesday telling me I couldn’t opt out.
– I then sent the STAAR follow-up refusal letter and by the end of the day today, I received a phone call from the principal informing me that she WOULD NOT present the assessment to my child the day of “testing” or any day after.
She was very appreciative of the documentation I sent because I also sent copies of the emails from Julie Cole. The principal confirmed that she would submit a blank score for him and he would spend the day with second graders that are not subjected to STAAR. THANK YOU SO MUCH TxEdRights! Because of you, I feel kick ass! I didn’t ask too many questions on here but instead, followed your step by step instructions and watched your videos! . My job is not done. I will be following up the day after testing to confirm my child’s score was submitted. Then we will do this every year, to which the principal already seemed to understand. . You can do this parents! Don’t back down!
My son is in 4th grade at Jim Ned Lawn Elementary School (Jim Ned CISD). I became aware of the possibility of opting out of STAAR when he was at the end of his 3rd grade year. I dove in doing as much research as I could and joined Texans Take Actions Against STAAR on facebook. In February 2023, I emailed the first opt out letter to the school including the principal, counselor and all three of his teachers. A little over a week later I received a telephone call from the school admin office. I received the standard lecture about how opting out is not an option, he has to take and pass the STAAR to graduate, if he is at school we have to make him take it, you can’t keep him home because the testing window is 17 days and that would put him over his limit of missed school days, his teachers really feel he can pass this with no issues. I explained that I have no doubt that my child can pass the staar but that has nothing to do with our decision for him not to participate. I advised her to please put all of this in writing and send it to me and that she was actually incorrect on multiple things she listed and needed to do some research before calling anyone else on this subject. A few weeks went by and crickets. I had heard nothing from the school. So on April 5th I emailed the follow-up opt out letter this time to the same people but including our school superintendent. A week to the day later I received an email from the principal with an attachment. The attachment was on school letterhead asking for my signature with information they needed to make sure I “understand” for opting my child out. the standard you must submit a written request to exclude your child; you understand your child’s test will be marked as “s” which will result in the lowest possible score; performance on staar/eoc assessments are required by TEC; HB4545 specifies they are required 30 hours of accelerated instruction per subject (I added at the end that it is required the school offers it not that we have to accept); and the score your child will receive as a result of you choosing to exclude them will hurt the campus and district’s state and federal accountability ratings. I have signed and returned the school’s CYA letter and honestly feel like this wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. Staar for our kids start next week and run for the next 17 days. I fully expect to hear from my child that they didn’t push it. He has been instructed and we have been preparing daily for him to politely refuse and if anyone gets ugly to call me. But I’m truly not expecting any issues from this point forward.
This year, I submitted my refusal letter to my 8th grader’s principal and counselor.. Initially, I received “Received” as a reply from the principal. After a couple of weeks, I emailed again asking his preference on what to do with my child on administration days. He told me to fill out the absence form for the initial administration days and that he would approve it, that way my kid could do any makeup work with no hassles. And, that was it!
For my 10th grader, I emailed the same refusal letter and the counselor called me. She went over what his options were and wanted to make sure I understood the acceptable substitutions. Months later during a 504 meeting, it was outlined that he will not be taking EOCs and will be utilizing subs, instead.
Our younger daughter graduated from high school last May. She hadn’t taken a STAAR Assessment since 5th grade. We used substitute assessments, IGC for US History, and she received the Covid waivers. Her US History IGC project was a report about the Civil Rights era. She spun it to include our decision to practice civil disobedience by refusing STAAR to reflect our beliefs that STAAR is a prejudiced system that specifically targets students of color, students of a lower socioeconomic status, students with learning disabilities, etc. She is the first student to opt out in our district (Pleasanton ISD) and received her diploma with all her earned honors. She is currently a freshman at Texas A&M University. TAMU never once asked about her missing STAAR scores. Colleges don’t care! We were blessed with a very supportive district and campus administration (or else they just didn’t want to deal with us anymore), but we also went into every single meeting prepared with all the information gleaned from this page. Many times we were educating our schools about opt out rights, but the facts from txedrights.net clearly spell it out.
STAAR is not required.
In 2022, when my daughter was a senior at United Independent School District in Laredo, Texas, I received an incredible amount of pushback for the ENTIRE YEAR as I opted my senior out of testing and requested an IGC, but I didn’t give in! I kept pushing and my daughter’s graduation kept being threatened. Literally, my daughter was told by her administrator at USHS, to her face without my presence on more than one occasion, “I hope you know your mom is risking your graduation.” She too didn’t give in, and I’m so incredibly proud of her. She even told them, “It’s ok. I have an uncle in Austin who is willing to pay for my CVEP and I’m sure that wouldn’t look good for you.” Still, they pushed back.
With tremendous help from an educational advocate we put together NUMEROUS emails sent to my daughter’s administrator who then involved district personnel such as the executive director of high school education. I then involved the counselor and had her verify in writing that my daughter has met all graduation requirements. Eventually we involved and carbon copied TEA into our emails.
For those who are still learning, TEA states students are to be given the opportunity to an IGC, individual graduation committee BEGINNING at the END of their JUNIOR year. This district CHOSE NOT TO time after time stating the child MUST retest at EVERY opportunity, but being I’ve helped other families I knew they were all lies. I seriously didn’t expect this much trouble though. They pushed the IGC until March, then May!!!! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!
So after compiling another email to TEA asking for direct clarification on the IGC my daughter was FINALLY granted her right to one!!!! She completed the project in no time and proudly walked the stage.
This is a public post because it is really important. As Opt Out groups have proliferated the quality control of these groups is increasingly poor. To the extent that parents get a lot of bad, or more often, woefully incomplete advice. Then when they fail in their opt out because they have not been properly prepared, their bad experience rebounds back against all of us.
This video addresses a trend I’ve seen increase significantly this year. It’s the advice to “just be absent” for the assessment and makeup day. Parents are touting this as if it is a panacea, and if that is the extent of their plan 90% of them will fail. This video tries to explain the problems with simple absence as a tactic. It’s not bad advice as far as it goes. But it is so, so incomplete, that it almost guarantees failure.
Be educated. Be prepared. Be Ready. Be successful.
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