On Thursday, August 13, an email was sent out to Plainfield School District 202 high school and middle school families, regarding the new system of teacher evaluations, which ultimately pertains to seniors no longer being exempted from finals.

The email, from Director of Community relations, Tom Hernandez, said, “Just wanted to give you some quick information about the state’s new Performance Evaluation Reform Act, or PERA. This is the state’s new teacher evaluation system. The PERA will require most students to take at least one special test this fall. The test will not affect student grades, but will help set a baseline of student academic growth for the new evaluation system.”

This email was sent out to inform students that pretests and final exams will be taken as the “special test(s)” by all high school students, which seniors will no longer be exempt from.

A pretest was issued to all high school students the first week of school in each class. The pretest scores will be compared to students’ final exam scores at the end of the semester.

The Senate Bill 315; Public Act 96-0861, also known as the PERA, was passed by the Illinois General Assembly and signed by the Governor in January 2010. The law must be fully be implemented in all Illinois high schools by next school year, 2016-17.

“This is a phase-in period to give school districts a chance,” said Principal Raymond Epperson. “This will measure student performance and student growth. The administrators have already been evaluated for the past two years.”

30 percent of Epperson’s evaluation as the principal of Plainfield North is the student performance at the high school.

Due to the fact that the official email was sent out on the very first day of school, this caused havoc among students. Prior to receiving the information that seniors would no longer be exempt from finals this school year, it was to everyone’s knowledge that seniors would in fact be exempt from finals among certain regulations.

“The news that PERA was going into act in our school district this year was confirmed at a district administrators meeting a week before school started,” said Epperson. “I would have preferred to have more information sooner, so that we could have told students last February that there would be no finals exemptions this year.”

Epperson has and continues to take suggestions from seniors to help come up with a new incentive for those who would have been exempted from final exams this school year.