PARCC testing day one: Students refusing exam sit “silently” in auditorium

Only 50 of the 166 kids who refused to take the PARCC test sat in the auditorium at Pascack Valley on Thursday for the duration of the test as they were supposed to.

Thursday marked the start of the PARCC exams. The first two days, Thursday and Friday, are devoted to math. English will be tested on Monday and Tuesday.

A fraction of the 116 absent students were not in school because they are juniors who take precalculus. The attendance list for students not taking the PARCC encompassed both the Math and English sections. However, according to PV principal Tom DeMaio, precalculus students are not required to come in the first two days because they are exempt from the math portion of the testing.

Students were not allowed to use technology and were required to be completely silent, reading a book. Those who were not present in the auditorium were marked as absent.

While these rules were mandated by the administration and made clear in several emails sent to the student body, many students did not follow them. Many were not reading. The room was not silent. Students were simply sitting around and talking. Many took walks around the auditorium. Several had their phones taken away and laptops taken away.

“We were so bored,” junior Rebecca Silverman said. “Someone just braided my hair. We weren’t even allowed to listen to music.”

And that was only the 50 students who were present. The other 116 students stayed at home. It is possible the turnout will be better on Monday and Tuesday, when precalculus students are required to come in, but it seems unlikely according to student opinion.

Many students refused the PARCC because of the stress it would add. AP exams end on Friday, the second day of PARCC testing, and some students even took the SAT last Saturday.

“It’s a lot of stress,” Silverman, who took an AP Exam on Wednesday, said. “The PARCC is unnecessary if I’m already meeting the graduation requirements.”

“If you ask a whole bunch of [people who are taking the PARCC, they’re taking it because] their parents are making them,” said Matilda Gaugler, a junior who cited a lack of parent understanding as the main reason why people were taking the PARCC.

Several students who refused the PARCC also found reasons to not come into school and wait in the auditorium.

Ryan Miller is a junior who is not taking precalculus but still did not come into school. Miller stated that he didn’t come in because, to his knowledge, there were no consequences beyond being marked absent.

“I didn’t want to sit in the auditorium with nothing to do,” Ryan Miller said. “All my schoolwork is on my laptop and I couldn’t even do it.”

It seems that as long as refusing the PARCC is an option, there will continue to be controversy over the necessity of the test and, following that, a number of students refusing.

“The PARCC is redundant,” Gaugler said. “We have a perfectly good education system.”