Reflections of High School Youth Ambassador - The Fears & Excitement of Graduating High School

Finishing high school and getting ready for college is definitely one of the most exciting parts about the transition from teenager to adult, but it's also one of the most nerve-wracking. It's scary to think that all of those years of grade school will eventually trickle down into just a few moments of opening college application results and walking across a stage in a cap and gown.

There are various inevitable fears and excitements that come along with graduating high school. We students understand that once the school year ends, our lives will never be the same. Naturally, it may sometimes be hard for parents or mentors to understand what's going through our heads as we prepare to say goodbye to the comfort of high school. With this in mind, I conducted a survey amongst my peers, asking them what their fears and excitements about graduating high school and moving on to college are.

Although no two of my peers had the exact same response, our fears and excitements seem to generally be the same. As much as we are excited to experience new things – make new friends, visit new places, and be grown up and independent – we are also scared to leave the comfort and familiarity of home and the everyday rituals of attending high school. We are afraid that all of our hard work will not be enough to get us into our dream schools, or that we might not like it when we get there.

In about a year or so, I will be the first in my immediate family to attend college. At first, although I was thrilled to be on the path to achieving something that no one in my family has achieved before, I felt alone in the whole ordeal, and was intimidated by the high school to college transitional process that awaits me. Thankfully, the Youth Ambassadors Program, which understands this situation very well and is aware that there are many students out there who are in that same situation, has been here to provide me with the guidance that I need to walk down a path that is unfamiliar to both my family and me.

Through my experience as a Youth Ambassador, I have come to believe that some of the best ways to make the transition from high school to college less frightening and more exciting for students is for parents, teachers, counselors, and/or mentors to work together to offer advice to students about graduation and college. Hearing about the experiences of others can be comforting. Answer any questions that students may have, since learning about something and being more familiar with it can help make it seem less intimidating, and provide college tours for students to various campuses so they can decide what they like and don't like, thus preventing the fear of uncertainty. And, if you are a parent that has not attended college, remember that senioritis (the bug that causes high school seniors to lose interest in high school) will definitely be in the air and your son or daughter is counting on you to prevent them from giving up or losing sight of their goals.

All in all, it is important to remember that although it can be stressful, graduating high school is a very exciting journey, and a perfect memory-making time for both students and their loved ones.

 

Djellza Ramadani 

About the Maryland State Assessments (MSA)

Compiled by Tanaya Gable

Maryland State Asessement (MSA) Reading and Mathematics Test  Administration

Grades 3 – 8 in Reading and Mathematics:  March 12-21, 2012; 

(Make-up Testing) March 22-28, 2012 

The early years of a child’s education are very crucial. These years of education are geared towards building a solid ground of educational understanding. As children advance to middle school they are then prepared for the more rigorous work ahead in high school. If you are a parent or educator, the term MSA (Maryland School Assessment) is probably not foreign to you. Every student will take Maryland School Assessments (MSAs) as part of the elementary and middle school experience. These statewide assessments are one of the many measures to gage how well a child is learning. The MSAs, paired with other measures (like homework, class work, quizzes, and projects), provide parents and educators with information about students’ academic progress so that every student has the adequate support and opportunity to succeed.

Aspects of the Test:

• Multiple-choice questions and questions requiring written responses.
• Measures basic as well as higher level skills
• Students test for approximately 90 minutes each day. There are four days of testing––two days for reading and two days for math.
• The testing vendor send scores for individual students to local school systems. The school systems then distribute the scores to parents

The MSA scores show how well students learned the reading and mathematics skills in the State Curriculum. (A "norm-referenced" score is also provided to show how students performed compared to other students across the nation.)

READING

The reading section takes place over two days with 90 minute sections per day. Each testing session withing is broken into smaller time blocks. Tests for all grades evaluate general, informational, and literary reading processes.

The Reading section of the MSA has 2 types of questions:

• Selected Response Items (SR) -- offers students (usually) four answer choices
• Brief Constructed Response Items (BCR) -- requires students to write answers consisting of a sentences or paragraphs

MATHEMATICS

As with the reading test, the math test takes place over two days. Testing takes approximately 90 minutes each day; each testing session being broken into smaller time blocks.

And as with the reading test, the math sections have various kinds of questions. In addition to the Selected Response Items and the Brief Constructed Response Items that all students receive, the math section poses additional forms of questions to students depending on the grade level being tested. Students in grades 5 through 8 also get Extended Constructed Response Items (ECR) that require students to write a longer, more complete answer. 7th and 8th graders will have Student-Produced Responses (SPR) which require them to record all answers on a grid by shading in the circles that correspond to the numbers of their answers.

The state provides calculators for students, though some sections allow the use of calculators and others do not. The state also provides scrap paper, graph paper and a dual scale ruler (or two separate rulers) for all grades 3 through 8, a protractor for grades 5 through 8, and a compass for grades 7 and 8.

SCORING & ASSESSMENT

The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires that every state measure reading, math, and science achievement at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Maryland fulfills NCLB by reporting MSA and HSA scores to the U.S. Department of Education. For more information about NCLB, go to www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml.  

Statewide tests are useful for:

• guiding school-wide curriculum development efforts
• creating or modifying classroom lesson plans
• understanding a child’s academic progress
• developing individualized strategies for that child
• providing information on where a child may need extra support.

PARENT CONCERNS

How will I know how my child did on an assessment?  All parents receive a Home Report with their child’s scores. Contact your child’s school or the Local Accountability Coordinator for the local school system to find out when your child's Home Report will be sent. For a list of local school system websites, go to www.MarylandPublicSchools.org/MSDE/schoolsystems.

    

Where can I find out how my child’s school is doing on statewide assessments? Information about the progress of particular schools, counties, and the state are doing is printed in an annual “report card” (the Maryland School Performance Report). This online report provides an Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) chart for each school that demonstrates whether or not a school made all of its performance goals. To find your child’s school information, go to www.MdReportCard.org  and use the navigation bar at the top.

Note: Parents are sent a Home Report with their child’s MSA scores from the local school system. Reading and math scores are made available over the summer. Science scores are available the following September. For more information about the MSAs go to www.MdReportCard.org or www.MdK12.org.  

FAMILY SUPPORT

The Take 15 for the Family and Take 15 for the Health of It initiatives are just one way MSDE helps families become more engaged in education. Daily tips and ideas of activities to do at home, as well as tips on how to talk to your child about a variety of health-related topics can be found online at www.marylandpublicschools.org/msde/programs/familylit/take15health. Check out http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/msde/ for other helpful sources and updates.

Ready at Five, in partnership with MSDE, has an online series called Parent Tips that has information about how parents can help build a child’s skills and abilities, which can be found at www.ReadyatFive.org  Maryland’s Early Childhood Curriculum Project provides information and resources to child care and other nonpublic early childhood programs for disabilities, birth through 6 years old. For information about materials and how you can be assured that your child is learning

the skills needed to start kindergarten on the right foot, go to www.MarylandPublicSchools.org/MSDE/divisions/child_care/preschool_curriculum.

The Maryland Model for School Readiness (MMSR) includes a kindergarten-level assessment, which teachers complete for each student, as well as a set of indicators of what children should know and be able to do. The information collected allows teachers to plan instruction that will help develop the skills, behaviors, and abilities necessary to meet kindergarten expectations and move on to the first grade. For more information about the MMSR, go to www.MdSchoolReadiness.org.

For more information about MSDE’s various programs, go to www.MarylandPublicSchools.org/MSDE/divisions/studentschoolsvcs.  

For information about specific programs and initiatives in place locally, contact your local school system or your child’s school. A list of local school system websites can be found at www.MarylandPublicSchools.org/MSDE/schoolsystems.  

Additional information about parent involvement can be found at www.Mdpta.org  or www.mdpirc.org.

Sources:

www.marylandpublicschools.org

www.ed.gov

www.mathandreadinghelp.org