District Will Give CLAS Test Today : Education: Judge says Antelope Valley officials could not use planned appeal to delay the controversial exam.

After weeks of strenuously protesting the state-mandated CLAS test as anti-family and an invasion of privacy, the Antelope Valley Union High School District has been ordered in court to administer the test before the school year ends next week.

Judge Diane Wayne, who ruled Monday in Superior Court in Los Angeles that the district could not refuse to give students the controversial test, issued an additional order Thursday saying that a planned appeal of her ruling could not be used as an excuse to delay it.

Because students are scheduled to take final exams on all school days next week, the CLAS test--normally given over four days--will be administered in its entirety today.

Frustrated district officials and board members said the test, formally known as the California Learning Assessment System test, will be administered as ordered to 3,000 10th-grade students, but added that the validity of the results will be questionable.

“It really will not be any kind of test at all,” said board member Wilda Andrejcik, who has been in the board minority in her support of the test and desire to give it. “I’m very frustrated that this wasn’t resolved earlier. (The test) has lost all its validity.”

Officials of the school district and state Department of Education blamed each other for the situation.

“They could have given it earlier and under better conditions,” said Susie Lange, a Department of Education spokeswoman. “They made that choice.”

The Department of Education had maintained throughout the controversy that schools were required to administer the test. But department officials have said that individual students not wishing to take it could be exempted.

The school district’s superintendent, Robert Girolamo, said he expects school today to be nothing short of chaotic, as students who would otherwise be readying for final exams are herded into cafeterias and auditoriums for nearly six hours of testing.

It was unclear Thursday night how many students will even end up taking the essay-style test, which is designed to measure students’ critical thinking skills.

A letter was to be sent home with all 10th-grade students Thursday afternoon to inform their parents that the district was giving the test and that they may exempt their children.

“Finals count, CLAS doesn’t,” said board member Sue Stokka, who has consistently opposed the test along with Tony Welch and board President Billy Pricer.

“Parents will have to decide which is more important,” Stokka said.

While educators have heralded CLAS as a revolutionary method of measuring students’ abilities, several conservative religious groups earlier this year began to object to the test, claiming it included literature passages that promoted racism and questions that asked students personal questions.

The secrecy surrounding the test, which prevented its public review, was also blasted.

The Antelope Valley school board’s conservative majority voted to not administer the test April 20, becoming the first district in the state to notify the Department of Education of its outright refusal to give it. Five other school districts of the 1,006 in California have also voted against administering the test.

The district is the only one that the Department of Education has filed suit against over the test. “We would have pursued the other five districts legally (but) we simply ran out of time,” said Joseph R. Symkowick, general counsel for the department.

Board member Bill Olenick, who with Andrejcik voted against the board majority’s decisions to not the administer the test, said he believes the court orders are a victory for parents.

“The fight (over CLAS) is in Sacramento, not at the local level,” he said. “The ruling’s a victory of parental rights to choose what’s best for their students. By banning the test the district stepped all over the rights of the parents.”

The school district’s attorney, Frank J. Fekete, is expected today to file the appeal of Wayne’s Monday ruling, but board members said it’s unlikely the district will actually pursue the matter.

“I don’t want to expend time or any money on something that is a designated loser,” Pricer said. “It might be better to regroup and see what we have to prepare for for next year.”