What’s something that all Spring Hill students grade 2-12 do twice a year and everyone dreads? For those of you new to the district or just didn’t catch the drift the answer is MAP testing. MAP testing is a standardized testing thats purpose was to serve as a diagnostic tool to see where each student was at academically and highlight students who needed help in certain subjects. Going into the 2017-2018 school year, all most all students expected to be MAP testing this year but instead the high school gave us a nice surprise by informing us that we would no longer be MAP testing.

According to Tim Shea, assistant principal, Marc Williams, principal, and him came up with the idea to end MAP testing and then with the permission from the district got MAP testing cut out for the high school. The reason behind this being that MAP testing was supposed to help the district and teachers see where students are at academically but the problem being that most juniors and seniors, and many others from grades below, don’t care what they get on the MAP tests so it didn’t accurately represent what it was supposed to. Last year alone almost 50 seniors from the 2017 class didn’t even take the MAP test.

For the past few years in order for students to get one of their two opt outs, they had to pass their MAP test, but now that there is no more MAP testing, it is a question of where the other opt out will come from. According to Shea, they have yet to make a decision regarding the opt outs. Before the opt out rule for MAP testing became established opt outs were rewarded based on GPA, attendance, and discipline. There is discussion about having one of those categories take place of MAP testing.

Although the school as a whole will no longer be taking MAP testing, unfortunately it isn’t over for everyone. Students will now take MAP tests for individual classes but this means that they will be shorter and there will be no special schedules. With all the special schedules and the length of the MAP tests, reported by Shea throughout the school year MAP tests took up almost a whole week of academic time. For many seniors and some juniors, depending on what classes they are enrolled in, will not have to take MAP testing at all. So say goodbye to confusing schedules, long periods of testing and silence, and the stress of losing an opt out, because Spring Hill High School is going “MAP-less.”