Los Altos High School juniors will take the Smarter Balanced Assessment System (SBAC) tests tomorrow, March 25, to Friday, March 28. Unlike previous years — when there were dedicated testing blocks in the morning — English and Social Studies classes will administer the SBAC. This also means that there will be no late start for other grades.

Though implemented in the hopes of improving scores and reducing disruption, the late notice given to teachers forced some course teams to adjust curriculum.

“Losing basically a week of instruction was a surprise,” English Department Coordinator Margaret Bennett said. “It definitely had people rethink their plans. Obviously, you have to drop things when you lose 180 minutes of instruction. It’s particularly a challenge for the AP classes.”

The change was made in hopes of raising participation rates, and to improve the testing environment. Rather than in randomly assigned classrooms, students will take the test in classes with peers and teachers they are familiar with.

“Our experience is that students perform better when they test in environments that are comfortable to them, with people they know,” Assistant Principal Derek Miyahara said. “Students generally feel more accountable to perform when they’re with teachers that they know. ”

The new schedule also aims to reduce disruption for non-juniors.

“In the past, the only people that were here in the morning were the people who were testing,” Miyahara said. “In order to clear out the morning, we have to shorten all the classes. This new schedule makes it more just part of a normal day. The classes that aren’t being tested aren’t being impacted at all. There’s an educational value to that as well.”

However, this change did come with challenges. Losing an entire week of instructional minutes is an obstacle for students and teachers alike, especially since teachers received relatively late notice.

“I think the decision was made in June, but we weren’t told until December,” AP English Language teacher Perla Luna said. “There wasn’t enough time to move things around, and we couldn’t cut into other units, so we just had to make everything shorter and manage our expectations of what the performance was going to look like. I can see both sides of it, but it was hard this year because we weren’t prepared for the change.”

Aside from just rescheduling, some classes needed to cut content — including AP classes preparing for AP exams.

“It affected our preparation for the argument essay, which is one of the essay prompts in the AP exam,” Luna said. “I feel a little less prepared for that prompt, as opposed to other years, but we’re going to do more prep in the following month, so hopefully we can make some of that up.”

“I cut a couple things out,” AP U.S. History teacher Gabriel Stewart said. “If it seems to materially affect the students ability to learn history, I can obviously revisit that next year.”

Since AP exams are content-based, some students have echoed their concerns over losing class time.

“I’m stressed because I’m losing class time due to SBAC testing, leading up to the APUSH test,” junior Sivan Cohen said.

A solution beyond cutting content was assigning more work for students to complete on their own time.

“In American Literature, they’re assigning more homework,” junior Arush Garg said. “We have a major assessment coming up, and to make sure that we have enough reading material, it’s assigned as homework.”

“I’m taking regular U.S. History and Am Lit, and we lost a lot of narrative work time for English class, and now our assessment is getting pushed back,” junior Betsy Cortes said. “My teachers adapted pretty well, but it is kind of inconvenient.”

The change also means seniors who took the test in the mornings last year now do not have a late start.

“I wish we had a late start,” senior Nandini Sharma said. “I think tests in the mornings were probably a better idea.”

“I had to sit through that, I did my time,” senior Maya Horton said. “It should be my time to shine.”

Despite the shakeup of the new schedule, the tests are a necessary part of high school accountability — California penalizes schools where less than 95 percent of students participate.

“State testing is something we’re required to do, and it definitely helps the school when students take the test and take it seriously.” Principal Tracey Runeare said. “It’s not meant to challenge students. It’s just to show that our students are meeting the grade level requirements. So then our results can show how well our school is doing.”

“I don’t think it’s anything that is too difficult to adjust for my class,” Stewart said. “Obviously, I love the minutes, but can I make the adjustment? Yeah, I can. I think it’s an issue that can be handled, no problem.”

As this change is still in its pilot phase, the administration will continue to monitor its effectiveness in improving student outcomes and reducing disruption to the school day.

“Like every change, it’s easier in some ways and more difficult in others,” Miyahara said. “But we have a plan and I think it will work great.”