STAAR testing season is here, but things will be different for students who do not meet the requirements of an exam. Now if a student doesn’t pass a STAAR exam, schools must provide 30 hours of any form of school intervention. The change is a result of House Bill 4545, which went into effect in June. 

School intervention includes, but is not limited to after school tutoring, summer learning, and/or intervention during the school day itself according to the Texas Education Agency.

The website states that “[f]or any student who does not pass the STAAR test in grades 3–8 or STAAR (EOC) end-of-course assessments, clarification of prior accelerated instruction requirements, specifying that it must include either being assigned a classroom teacher who is a certified master, exemplary, or recognized teacher or receiving supplemental instruction (tutoring) before or after school, or embedded in the school day.”

As far as Frisco ISD goes, students will first have the option to do a retest during the summer.

“House Bill 4545 is basically a checks and balances system to make sure that students are getting the remediation they need to be successful on the EOC tests and make sure they have all the skills necessary to be successful,” associate principal Stacey Whaling said. “[House Bill 4545] will begin this summer for students who either missed the test or didn’t pass the test. There are retests over the summer, so if they are able to do that, students can do retests instead of the remediation.”