BARSTOW • As school districts across the state transition to new testing standards, some local school officials say they are unsure as yet how to prepare.

Dozens of High Desert teachers gathered at the Barstow Unified School District to train for the new Common Core Standards, which take effect in 2014. The new tests will be computer-based and have more performance tasks in addition to multiple-choice questions.

This differs from predecessor Standardized Testing and Reporting (commonly known as STAR tests), which were paper, multiple-choice tests.

Silver Valley Unified School District sent only five teachers to the training. Though they wanted to see what the training would offer, they did not want to sacrifice too much classroom time to learning new standards that were not clear, Miglis said.

“We are on a learning curve to prepare for greater understanding on how this will affect us,” Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Micheline Miglis said. “This has not been clearly communicated by the California Department of Education.”

The teachers who do attend will be reporting to a committee of the school board and they will determine how to train the entire district.

“We’re going as fast as we can and as slow as we can,” Miglis said. “We want to stay informed but not get too far ahead of ourselves. It’s a balancing act for now.”

BUSD decided to train with the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Learning and Leadership Center, which has ties to SMARTER Balance, the company writing the assessments, according to Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Teresa Healy.

Healy said BUSD will determine the best course of action after they see what the training offers.

Lenwood Elementary School teacher Genie Espinoza attended the training and said thus far it was not clear how they would implement new standards.

“Hopefully we will have fewer standards, but that they will be more in depth; that the emphasis will be on practical application of skills rather than memorizing facts,” Espinoza said.

All but six states have adopted the Common Core Standards, which will make state-to-state comparisons more accurate.

“I think it’s more fair to compare apple to apples,” Healy, “Our kids are part of a global society. Every kid is getting a similar expectation.”

Having the same standard as other states will also make it easier for military families to transition to Fort Irwin schools, according to Miglis.

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