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Kimberly Ellis Der's avatar

Re:

It’s not perfect; i-Ready assessments have already been conducted (he refused them), but no take-hom

As your friends to the south of you in Capistrano unified, I specifically revoked my permission for i-Ready diagnostic and the principal responded that I couldn't revoke that permission. So I decided to homeschool my child. What advice would you have for me, if that's the district's policy? Do I have any any legs to stand on to revoke I-Ready diagnostic? It was causing my son to be so dysregulated. He was kicking the assistant principal and they reported back to me that they made great progress by getting through a quarter of it!

John Allen Wooden's avatar

Hi Kimberly. Wow that's a crazy (but not uncommon) story. Last year my family had a similar battle, also with the principal initially denying our right to opt-out. I then personally harangued LAUSD into finally putting the policy in writing. (It's limited to My Path and the EOY assessment.) But as of this writing, technically the first two i-Ready assessments of the academic year remain compulsory in LAUSD - so part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. To his credit, last week my kid simply refused, stating flatly that his parents had opted him out and he wasn't allowed to be on i-Ready -- and neither the math nor ELA teacher objected. (One emailed me privately to express enthusiastic support.) However LAUSD has announced all ed-tech contracts are under the microscope, and they will be releasing the results of a thorough i-Ready policy review this fall, so perhaps the platform will be purged altogether. I get the feeling all the administrators are realizing that the ed-tech requirements are increasingly a house of cards that is poised to collapse. The only advice I can offer is what I'm doing myself: being adamant that they are not permitted to plug my kid in, and instructing him to politely refuse to cooperate. If the school opts to escalate the situation, then we'll be entering a legal arena.