After much discussion during its July 16 meeting, the Crawford County R-2 Board of Education voted to change its student handbook policy regarding test retakes. Students are now allowed one re-take of each test if they request to do so within two days of receiving the results. The prior policy allowed students unlimited retakes with requests due within two days of taking the test.

Cuba High School principal Michael Clutts brought the issue to the board, after hearing complaints from teachers that students were taking advantage of the previous policy.

“The teachers’ frustrations are that our students are playing the game. Since they could take an unlimited number of retakes, what they do is take the test without studying,” Clutts said.

“Now they have the questions for the test. I didn’t want to create more work for the teachers, but I want to just tell them not to give the same test, make it a different test. One of the teachers did that. And all of a sudden, kids quit taking retakes, and so that’s the thought with the committee behind the one.”

The board also discussed rephrasing its current policy in the student handbook, which said, “Students are expected to retake tests if they received a grade under 70 percent.”

“There’s another line in here that says any student who scores below a 70 percent will be expected to retake the test,” said school board president, Jennifer Moreland.

“It doesn’t say required; it says expected. But if we are expecting them to retake if they get less than 70 percent, but they are now only getting one retake, then we have a contradictory statement in our handbook,” Moreland added.

The board also decided to change the language of the handbook regarding when a student could ask for a retake.

In the past, the handbook required that students would need to request a retake two days after taking the test. In an effort to lessen the turnaround time for teachers, it was decided that the handbook should state that “students can request a retake two days after receiving the results.”

School board treasurer Chris Bell suggested that teachers return tests within seven days of them being taken so that the test material will still be fresh in the student’s minds if they are interested in a retake.

Cuba Middle School students will still be allowed more than one retake, something Moreland said she agrees with.

“Middle school did not make these changes to their handbook, so middle school is still going to allow retakes for their test,” she said. “I am a firm believer that not every child is a good test taker. I would say there’s people in this room that could even agree with that. Personally, I don’t like it going down to just one retake.”

Board member Adam Carnal agreed that high school students should have tighter restrictions on retakes.

“I think as students get older, they need to have tighter restrictions and more accountability,” Carnal said.

The board and Clutts came to the conclusion that the retake test should be different from the original.

Bell said that some circumstances could warrant more than one retake, but also agrees with Carnal that there should be restrictions once the students reach high school.

“I don’t like the one retake because what if they get a 65, then they get a 69. You know, so you see that they were learning or maybe they studied more,” he said. “If we give retakes, you almost have to open it up. But I’m a firm believer of Adam (Carnal). We need to start necking this down at some point.”

The board concluded the discussion with a 6-0 vote in favor of changing the high school student handbook to allowing students one retake of each assessment that needed to be requested within two days after original results.