Barrie residents are invited to a public meeting tonight to offer input on how students are assessed including homework, tests and exams.
The Ministry of Education's first review since large scale assessment began 20 years ago is underway and includes a series of public information sessions with a Barrie event tonight.
"We need to hear from you - educators, students, parents and community members. We need your voices, your experiences your perspectives," said Dr. Carol Campbell who is leading the review along with the Premier's six Education Advisors,
"Negative and positive experiences. Good and bad experiences. It's twenty years since assessment began. It's time now to look again at how we best support our student's learning. There's a huge range of possibilities."
The six-month review includes how students are assessed in classrooms by teachers and information that goes home to parents, national and international assessment programs.
Education, Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) assessments will be looked at but not eliminated.
The testing is currently applied to grades 3, 6, 9, 10.
"Our mandate does not include the abolition of EQAO but within that there's lots that can be possible," said Dr. Campbell.
"We can look at what knowledge, subjects and skills should be assessed or not assessed. We could look at what grades should be assessed or not assessed. Whether all students should be assessed or a sample. Whether technology should be used."
Campbell says there is a lot that can be changed and there are no predetermined recommendations.
"That's why we really do need these public engagement sessions. We wanted to listen to as many voices and as many experiences as possible to get the best advice and experiences, hopes and concerns about how we can hopefully approve student assessment going forward for our students and parents and our communities."
The public information sessions go to the end of December and the deadline for the review is March 2018.
The Barrie session is tonight at Liberty North Event Centre at 100 Caplan Avenue.
Open House: Roundtable Session:
Input can also be provided online by visiting: www.
