Is the Collier County School District the blueprint for monitoring student achievements?

Gov. Ron DeSantis hopes to move away from Florida State Assessments to a different testing format, one the Collier County school district has used for a decade.

Teachers say there is a better way to measure their students’ success.

And students are relieved they won’t have to focus so much on end-of-the-year exams.

“We try to make it fun,” said Marsha Colbert, a fifth-grade teacher at Veteran’s Memorial Elementary School. “You know I’m sure there’s a bit of nervousness at times because it’s a one-day high stakes thing.”

Especially for seniors like Marissa Akins who must pass to graduate.

“You don’t get like multiple tries or to see to have another chance to improve your score, especially when it’s at the end of your senior year you need that test,” Akins said.

DeSantis would like to dump the exam and go with “progress monitoring” which would test kids throughout the year. It is something Veteran’s Memorial Elementary School has done for 10 years.

“I think it helps us dive deeper and it’s more applicable when we have progress monitoring and we’re looking at it in a sense of where our specific students are and what they can do and we can more immediately address those needs,” said Jessica Vieira, principal at Veteran’s Memorial Elementary.

“We want to monitor their progress along the way; we don’t want to wait until the end and see how it all shook out when it was all over,” Colbert said.

Colbert said she gets more information from progress monitoring than from the FSA.

“I don’t think anyone is going to miss it,” Vieria said.