Students will do everything they can to get out of a standardized test, and last year it was as easy as getting their parent’s signature on a piece of paper. The rumored option to opt-out of the newest standardized test, AzMERIT, led to a high number of students failing to take the test with their parent’s permission. This year, that will not be an option.

Last April, students buzzed with the possibility of opting-out of the AzMERIT, even though it was false news. Students who took advantage of the opt-out did not attend school, or left early before testing began.

District Superintendent Camille Casteel confirms that there was not an opt-out option and a failure to take the test is essentially illegal. “The law hasn’t changed from last year.  We have a ‘duty to administer’ the test and the law doesn’t provide for opt-out and never did,” she states.

Attorney General Mark Brnovich explains the inability to opt-out of a state mandated test in a recent press release to the district, “there is no right to opt out of statewide assessments, children who attend school during the testing windows are required to take assessments as scheduled.” The only reason students got out of the test last year was because of their absence, not due to an opt-out option.

This applies to not only the AzMERIT, but to any standardized test. Assistant Principal Heather Patterson mentions the impracticality of trying to avoid statewide tests. “No matter what school you go to, there’s going to be some sort of state testing, whether you agree with it or don’t agree with it,” she says.

Now that the law will be more heavily enforced this year, students can expect to be required to take the test. Though the test scores will not determine their ability to graduate, it will affect the school as a whole.

Many do not understand the importance of standardized tests, as they impact the district as a whole. “Our biggest challenge comes when the state grades our schools/teachers using the test scores; and our students don’t take the test seriously,” Casteel says, “our teachers, schools and the district suffer the consequences.”

Patterson agrees the scores are significant, but it relies on a student’s motivation. “You as a student have to decide what’s important and what’s not. I think every student would want to do their personal best, no matter what they were doing.”

Though the test was not taken very seriously among students last year, Perry still received some of the highest test scores not only in the district, but in the state. “In English, we were number one in the district,” Principal Dan Serrano explains. “Our scores were higher than the district average, higher than the state average; we did really well.”

Students can expect to take the AzMERIT toward the end of the year, and this time it will be much harder to get out of.