CMS told schools to remove encouraging posters for testing. Then, it changed course

Teachers at East Mecklenburg High School printed the affirmations on multicolored posters to hang in the halls and classrooms of the school to center students amid testing jitters.

“I am prepared.”

“I have plenty of time.”

“I trust my knowledge.”

This year’s end-of-grade state tests began May 28. Students in grades 3-8 are taking end-of-grade tests across the state, except some districts that began the school year earlier in the fall. But the evening before testing began last week, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools principals were told to take the encouraging posters down. And now, they’ve been told it’s OK to put them back.

Rebecca Costas, who teaches math at East Mecklenburg High School to mostly multilingual students, said educators also printed the signs in foreign languages to encourage students in their native tongue: Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, French and Mandarin.

It’s not a practice unique to this year or this school. While educators are required to cover any instructional material on walls prior to state tests, messages of encouragement have typically been fair game in past years.

That’s why educators were confused by the district’s initial guidance, Costas said, which she deemed not only “absurd” but unempathetic.

“We got the kids to buy into (the signs), and told them they’d be there as a reminder if they started to get frustrated or down on themselves during the test,” Costas told The Charlotte Observer. “It’s incredibly frustrating to have had to take them down… it seems we would want to give these kids every encouragement we can to make it through these exhausting tests.”

CMS changed course Monday, telling principals messages of encouragement were allowed to stay up. But the clarification came days after testing began — and was far from the first hiccup in this month’s end-of-grade exams.

“Very frustrating”

A document titled “All Schools: End-of-Year Testing Reminders” went out to principals from CMS leadership on the evening of May 27. The Observer obtained it through a public records request.

It listed a number of rules and guidelines related to the next day’s state exams. Buried among them was one bullet point that confused CMS teacher Justin Parmenter.

“Any affirmations should be removed from testing rooms and testing hallways,” it stated.

Parmenter is a long-time English teacher at South Academy of International Languages in south Charlotte.

“Our students have navigated a very challenging year, and they need all the support and encouragement we can provide,” Parmenter said.

State testing has been administered primarily online since the 2017-18 school year. By the 2022-23 school year, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction required all end-of-grade testing to be administered online, except for students with a documented need for accessibility accommodations.

The tests are a big deal for the district as a whole: Each public school in the state is given a “school performance grade” on an A-F scale each year, and end-of-grade test results are the main component used to determine a school’s score. Scores are also a large component of how CMS officials and school board members gauge if the district is making progress.

CMS encountered two consecutive days of technical glitches that disrupted state tests on Thursday and Friday. Server issues caused screens to freeze or abruptly kick students out of the system.

“Having those affirming messages erased just before two consecutive days of major technical issues on state EOG tests was very frustrating,” Parmenter told The Observer. “The kids were forced to navigate a broken system without the visual reminders that their teachers and peers were rooting for them.”

Then, on Monday night, the district appeared to do an about-face on its initial directions via an email to principals. The Observer obtained it through a public records request.

“Last week we were alerted to some concerns from school staff members about possible inequities between schools when schools are using various forms of student affirmation during testing (signs, t-shirts, etc). There was a request for clarity,” it stated. “State information does not prevent affirmations in classrooms or hallways. Therefore, it is ok to have affirmations in classrooms or hallways.”

For Parmenter, it was a welcome update.

“I’m glad to see the change and would hope that going forward, we will continue to see policies that reflect empathy for what students and educators face in our schools,” he said.

Many schools plan to finish end-of-grade tests this week, though testing schedules can vary school-to-school. It’s unclear how and if different schools across the district enforced the initial guidance or if they will reverse course after the update from CMS.