"The Harrisonburg School Board has adopted a resolution that overrides a federal mandate requiring low-level English as a Second Language students to take state standardized reading tests - and Charlottesville and Albemarle County educators have taken notice.

The resolution allows Harrisonburg teachers to choose which ESL students would take the Standards of Learning tests, a significant shift that would allow for more local autonomy in monitoring student achievement, especially noteworthy with the No Child Left Behind Act up for reauthorization by Congress later this year.

Charlottesville Mayor David Brown, who has taken an interest in the issue because of the large presence of international refugees in the city schools, favors Harrisonburg’s move.

“I admire them for being bold enough to take action on the issue in this way,” Brown said.

Refugee children, resettled in the Charlottesville area by the International Rescue Committee, make up 48 percent of the ESL population in city schools and 8 percent in Albemarle’s school division.

Brown is meeting with staff members of Sen. John W. Warner, a Republican, and Democrat James H. Webb and of Republican 5th District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. today in Washington to discuss how these refugee students are asked to take the SOL tests only one year after they are enrolled in school.

“They are at a huge disadvantage, so to penalize them and penalize us is not fair,” Brown said.

Brown is addressing the specific issues of refugee students within the larger ESL student body, and city ESL coordinator Beverly Catlin said the School Board will not, at this time, pursue a move similar to Harrisonburg’s with the division’s entire ESL population.

“We don’t have the numbers of [ESL] students that Harrisonburg or Fairfax has,” Catlin said.

The Charlottesville School Board had previously taken a stand by adopting a resolution in December asking the state to allow low-level ESL students to continue taking an alternative to the SOL reading test through the 2007-08 school year. This issue will be resolved as part of No Child’s renewal process.

Charlottesville had 342 ESL students in pre-k through 12th grade as of Thursday, 8.1 percent of the student body. Albemarle had 858 ESL students in K-12, 6.9 percent of its student body, as of Sept. 30, the latest figures available.

Thirty-eight percent of Harrisonburg students are in its ESL program, meaning that if its ESL students were to fail the SOL tests, the entire division would face penalties from the federal government, including a possible reduction in funding and the option for students to transfer out of a school or out of the division.

ESL enrollment in Charlottesville and Albemarle schools has not reached such levels, but with a growing ESL student body in both divisions, local educators are closely monitoring what actions other school divisions are taking.

“We have some schools that could be at risk,” Albemarle Superintendent Pamela Moran said. “I’m not sure that I would be ready to join in and say we’re ready to not test our kids, but it’s a concern.”

State Superintendent Billy K. Cannaday Jr., Superintendent for Harrisonburg city schools Donald Ford and Teddi Predaris, Fairfax County’s ESL director, met with federal education officials in December to ask if low-level ESL students in Virginia could continue using an alternative test to the SOLs. Department of Education officials had told Virginia educators last summer that its alternative test did not comply with the No Child Act.

“Our hope is that the U.S. Department of Education is going to look at our request favorably from the state,” Moran said, “particularly given that it’s somewhat unusual to have a bipartisan group of congressional delegates who have all come together to say, ‘We think you need to take a different path on this issue at the federal level.’”" (Matt Deegan, The Daily Progress, January 26, 2007)