Dear Parents,

The New Jersey Department of Education joined forty two other states in 2010 in adopting the Common Core Standards. In addition, New Jersey adopted a new assessment titled the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC). Both PARCC and the Common Core meet the federal mandates of establishing  educational outcomes and graduation requirements for all students.

PARCC is better aligned to the Common Core than its' predecessor assessments, the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK)  and the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA). PARCC and the Common Core are meant to prepare our students for the rigor of college and a career by delving deeper into subject areas and requiring students to utilize critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and effective communication skills in addressing real world problems. Another difference between PARCC and NJASK is that PARCC is administered on a computer. We feel confident that our children are prepared for an online assessment.

Because PARCC measures students' understanding of the Common Core, we strongly encourage your child to participate in the PARCC Assessment. We use data from standardized assessments, such as PARCC, to not only identify each child's academic strengths and weaknesses, but to also evaluate the strength of our academic programs. In addition, the data from PARCC will be used to measure the effectiveness of BTSD on the annual New Jersey School Performance Report.

New Jersey does not provide an opt out provision for PARCC. However, we recognize that some parents have concerns about PARCC and have requested that their children not participate in PARCC. We have developed sensible  guidelines that we feel will provide direction to parents and address student attendance issues. We respectfully ask that parents who do not want their child to take PARCC submit a letter to their child's Principal by Friday, February 27, 2015.

• Students who attend school and whose parents have submitted a written request disallowing their child's participation in the PARCC test will be marked present for the day. During the testing periods, those students will be directed to a classroom or another area and will be asked to read or work independently and quietly while supervised by a staff member.
   

• Students whose parents submit a written statement disallowing their child to participate in PARCC, and who are absent or tardy during a PARCC test day, will be marked absent or tardy. These students will not be required to take the PARCC make up test.

• Students who are not present on a test day will be marked absent and will sit for the PARCC make-up test as scheduled.

• Students who arrive at school after the testing is completed, will be marked as tardy for the day and absent for the test. These students will be required to sit for the PARCC make-up test as scheduled.

We have not been provided clear guidelines by the New Jersey Department of Education for recording students on the state system who do not take PARCC. However, students' district grades will not be affected by not participating in PARCC.

More information on PARCC can be obtained by visiting our web site: www.burltwpsch.org or the PARCC web site www.parcconline.org

We have had PARCC parent sessions and we will continue to provide resources and other information to parents, as it becomes available. Our goal is to ensure that students and parents are fully informed about PARCC.

Yours in education,

Michael G. Kozak, Ed.D.