My son is at his middle school on a transfer and not eligible for an IEP, but we have been muddling along somewhat with just 504 accommodations. Because he can’t get resource help, we opt for him not to take the three days of SAT-9 tests later this month. However, he has a SAT-9 writing test coming up that apparently all 7th graders have to take. The teacher has made it clear that this is a 60-minute test with absoultely no breaks. This may as well be a death sentence for my son as there is no way he can sit at anything for 60 minutes without a break, particularly something he dislikes as much as writing. Does anyone know if there is anything we can ask for as far as accommodations? We also wondered about simply opting out of this as well. What do you think?
Go to the following document on STAR Testing and Accommodations. My take is your son should be accommodated for is disability. Place a call to your 504 coordinator to discuss this issue. I think it would be resonable to break the writing into two parts a pre-writing session where your son gets a chance to think and plan out his writing and a session to do the actual writing. This would be considered a non-standard accommadation. My son took the writing assessment last year. He used a computer to write the essay and an adult copied it into the test booklet. If the essay was not copied into a test booklet it would not be scored.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/spbranch/sed/nonstnac.htm
Helen