Orange County school leaders said they will not support a plan by Seminole County Public Schools to replace the Florida Standards Assessment with other tests.

The school board discussed testing at a workshop at Edgewater High School Thursday night.But Orange County’s superintendent said she’s still not happy with how the first year of FSA testing played out.

“I want to be clear. All of us superintendents throughout the state were dissatisfied with the first implementation of the FSA,” said Dr. Barbara Jenkins.

But Orange County School Board members made it clear they will not be supporting the “Seminole Solution,” the school district’s push to oust the FSA and replace it with the Iowa assessment and the SAT.

“We admire Seminole County for advocating a different approach. The problem is they’re advocating use of the SAT for purposes it was never intended for,” said School Board Chairman Bill Sublette.

Seminole County school leaders said the SAT, and the Iowa assessment, return scores much quicker than the FSA. School districts across the state are still waiting for FSA results from last school year.

Legislators ordered the FSA be studied for its validity. But Orange County leaders doubt the FSA is going away.

“There may be some nibbling at the edges, but it’s pretty certain in my mind that the validity study is going to find the test valid,” said Sublette.

Instead of trying to replace the FSA, Orange County School administrators said they are going to try to take several steps to make it work without allowing the state standardized test to disrupt too much instruction time.

They are going to ask the state to give students the option of taking the FSA using paper and a pencil.

They hope that will eliminate the computer glitches last spring that they said cost students and teachers a lot of instruction time.  

OCPS will also ask the state for more computers so testing doesn’t take up so many days.  And the school district is spending $500,000 to hire test proctors, so teachers won’t have to be pulled out of the classroom to administer the FSA.

But those steps are not enough for some parents who say the FSA must go.   

“It hasn’t been validated, parents have never seen it, teachers aren’t allowed to see the questions. Something’s fishy, and I don’t like that,” said Daisy Mitchell, an Orange County parent.

Seminole County School Board members said several districts across the state are supporting their “Seminole Solution” plan, including Lake County School Board members. 

Osceola County School leaders said they plan to discuss whether to support the plan next week.