I have been designated as a "back-up" testing coordinator for my school. Since the passage of legislation prohibiting guidance counselors from coordinating any testing, the job has fallen to anyone else who could possibly do it: librarians, technology facilitators, and assistant principals are the main candidates (targets?) at my school. At least once a week since the beginning of October, I have had an entire day utterly shot by testing -- ensuring that displaced classes have somewhere to go, rearranging lunches to accommodate tests that run over three hours, administering/proctoring/relieving administrators/proctors to go to the restroom...it started with the PSAT, and then the PLAN (a required practice ACT for sophomores), and today it was the "College and Career Readiness Test" (a county-required test for all juniors).
As an educator, I long ago became comfortable with the idea of accepting "whatever comes with the job." Right now, the job of a media coordinator/teacher-librarian is in a state of flux; we are no longer solely the keeper of the books, the custodian of computers, the grouchy lady at the circulation desk who yells at unruly students who dare enjoy themselves in the library. The idea of transitioning to a teacher librarian encompasses so much more. We are here for students AND for teachers. We are here to make learning easier, to bridge the empty space between information and someone's brain, to develop curriculum. And since the job is already in such a transitional period, the idea of becoming a full-time testing coordinator utterly terrifies me, as I'm sure it did guidance counselors when the illustrious (or, more accurately, illustriously miserable) job was bestowed upon them. Their first thought must have been something similar to mine: "...as if we didn't already have enough to do."
The amount of state, district, or county-mandated testing in North Carolina is unprecedented. We now have, in addition to end-of-course or end-of-grade tests, standardized tests for almost every subject at the end of the semester. Throughout the semester, we have the ACT, the PSAT, and the PLAN (to name a few). We need professional, full-time testing coordinators now more than ever, and have fewer funds and resources than ever before.
Like my last post, I don't have a solution to this conundrum (other than pressing for the addition of a full-time testing coordinator). I just wanted to reflect for a moment on my frustration at having so much of my valuable teaching and library time be overshadowed by doing testing-related duties. I am co-teaching a Holocaust unit with another teacher right now; I'm personally vetting websites for informative QR codes in the non-fiction section; I could have used the hours I spent walking around in circles and staring menacingly at students writing discussion questions or updating the library website. I have never coordinated tests before, and while it may seem like an easy job, just being the "back-up" is the rotten triple threat of time-consuming, stressful, and tedious.
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