4 Districts Will Exempt Students From CLAS Tests : Education: Officials say children whose parents request it will not be given the controversial exams. But Simi board members contend that critics are misinformed.

Skirting state law to appease opponents of the new California assessment tests, several Ventura County school districts have agreed to exempt individual children from the exams.

But in Simi Valley, school board members say they have reviewed the California Learning Assessment System and believe that most of the complaints are based on misinformation.

At least four school districts--Fillmore Unified, Oxnard Elementary, Oxnard Union High School and Mesa Union--are honoring the requests of parents who want their children excused from the CLAS exams, despite a state law requiring all students to take them.

And other districts in the county, such as Ventura Unified, are giving implicit permission to parents requesting that their children be excused from the exams.

Ventura school board members agreed Tuesday that they could fulfill their legal responsibility by simply placing the test in front of students, without forcing them to take it.

The Simi Valley trustees were among the first in the county to review the tests themselves and publicly express support for CLAS as a valuable assessment tool.

“I found none of the things that were alleged to be in the test by some of the groups” opposing CLAS, Simi Valley board member Doug Crosse said. “I found the literature to be age-appropriate. I found the literature to have a lot of socially redeeming values, to be realistic.”

All California school districts are legally required to administer the CLAS exams this spring to students in the fourth, fifth, eighth and 10th grades.

“They have to give it and kids have to take it,” said Susie Lange, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.

State education officials have advised districts across the state that they have no legal authority to excuse individual students from the exams, Lange said, but the department so far is not considering legal action against districts that agree to such exemptions. However, the state issued a letter of warning to the Antelope Valley Union School District in the San Fernando Valley after officials there recently voted not to administer the test to students.

Sherry Loofbourrow, president of the California School Boards Assn., estimated that dozens of the state’s roughly 1,000 school districts are agreeing to excuse students from the CLAS exams.

Across the state, anti-CLAS groups have fanned opposition to the tests by passing out copies of materials, supposedly excerpted from CLAS, that include stories some parents consider too dark or disturbing for their children.

But Lange echoed Crosse that many of the excerpts raising concerns among parents are not on the 1994 tests. “They’re basing their complaints primarily on bad information,” she said.

Bernard Korenstein, assistant superintendent of the Oxnard Elementary School District, agrees that much of the concern about CLAS is based on misinformation. And he hopes that by the time the exams are given next year, much of the confusion will be cleared up.

But this year, Korenstein said, the district has too little time before the scheduled exam dates in May and June to ensure that all parents are comfortable with CLAS.

“We recognize that at least this year, parents are dealing with information they’re getting barraged with” from CLAS opponents, he said. “There’s a comfort zone, and we want parents to be comfortable with what’s going on with their child’s education.”

So the 12,500-student Oxnard district will excuse children from the tests if their parents make such a request in writing, Korenstein said.

Similarly, the Oxnard Union High School District has agreed to exempt individual students at its six high schools from the exams. And in Fillmore, school officials said students would be excused from the test at parents’ request.

In addition, Dennis Convery, superintendent of the Mesa Union School District near Camarillo, said he told parents this week that the district would honor written requests to excuse students from the exams.

“Parents have to have that right,” said Carol Johnson, president of the Mesa Union Parent-Faculty Organization. “There are a lot of controversial issues here.”

Many of those controversial issues were brought up at a meeting of the Ventura school board Tuesday, attended by about 30 parents opposed to the tests.

Passing out materials that were labeled as practice CLAS tests from this year and last, some parents focused their complaints on the purported content of this year’s exam, particularly short stories that contain violent or disturbing passages.

But many parents said they are also concerned about the cost of developing and administering CLAS--$25.6 million each year--plus the air of secrecy surrounding the tests and the methods for grading the exams.

Because CLAS tests focus on open-ended questions, such as asking for students’ responses to particular stories, parents said they worry that the grading is too subjective.

“I’m appalled at the content of that test,” said Janet George, president of the Parent-Teacher Organization at Mound School in Ventura. “I’m also concerned about the subjective nature of the test. How do you evaluate a kid’s feelings?”

But state education officials said their scoring guidelines for CLAS allow little subjectivity. And while many parents have complained about a shroud of secrecy surrounding CLAS that prevents people from seeing the tests, state officials said all such assessment exams are kept confidential to protect their integrity.

Nevertheless, state educators said they are heeding the concerns of parents about CLAS when the state reviews the tests this year.

“This year, we’ll be paying special attention to things that could potentially offend,” Lange said. “We have work to do to rebuild confidence.”

Times correspondent Julie Fields contributed to this story.