Kyle and Jennifer Massey 2809 Maple Ave Waco, TX 76707 March 26, 2014 Ms.

Lisa Cain, Principal Hillcrest Professional Development School Waco Independent School District Waco, Texas Dear Ms. Lisa Cain, Thank you for your letter dated March 26th, 2014, in response to the letter we sent to you last week, providing notice to Waco ISD that we chose to exercise our parental rights to opt our son out of all state mandated tests for the remainder of the academic year. The process you outline in your letter is dismissive of our rights as parents to opt our children out of harmful school activities. You state that Waco ISD had "no authority to grant [our] request for an exemption". However, we contend that existing legislation (due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the Texas Education Code, Title 2, Subtitle E, "Students and Parents, Section 26, "Parental Rights and Responsibilities") does give you the ability to exempt William from the STAAR test because we have provided you with a written statement outlining our moral objections and providing you with the authority to do so. Can you please provide a written explanation with regard to why Waco ISD believes it does not have the authority and why it will not uphold our parental rights? We are pleased Waco ISD has responded to public pressure and developed procedures for students to refuse to take the STAAR test. However, we are deeply concerned with some of the details of the process: 1. This process undermines our rights and responsibilities as parents. We have already provided you with a detailed written explanation of our decision to refuse to participate in the test. Yet, your letter states you intend to ignore our instructions and present our child with the test. The process you outline downloads responsibility for decision-making to, in our case, a 4th grade student. According to your letter, you plan to present William with the test and only if he refuses to take the test will he be allowed to return to educational instruction. Our son is nine years old and is not in a position to make such a decision, not should you force him to do so. As his parents, it is our responsibility to make such choices. We have made our decision and have informed you as required by law. We expect our decision to be respected and our parental rights upheld. This process is abusive and will cause psychological harm to children. There is an inherent power imbalance between teachers and school children. It is not acceptable practice on the part of a school to invite a child to participate in an activity against the expressed wishes of his/her parents. This would put the child in the position of having the sole responsibility to enact the parents' wishes (wishes that have already been expressed by the parents in writing to the school). The process you outline places the student in a very vulnerable situation that we believe is abusive and will cause psychological harm. This process is indicative of institutional bullying. You note that the test will be "scored". Exactly what "score" will be given is not included in your letter. However, you note that "a scored test means it is considered to have been taken by the student regardless of having no answers. A score will be assigned to the student by the TEA." This suggests that a score of 0 or a failing grade will be assigned to William if he follows your process and refuses to take the test. We contend that the strategy of assigning a student a score of zero or an 'F', because their parents exercised their legal rights to protect their child from harm, is designed to scare parents from taking a similar course of action. Last

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year we opted William out of the STAAR test and kept him at home. On official records his test was recorded as "not scored." We believe "not scored" is a reasonable and honest account. We believe the process you outline in your letter is abusive and will cause psychological harm to our son. Therefore, William must be exempted from the process you outline. He must not be taken to the testing room and or presented with the option of completing the STAAR tests. To do so would create an unnecessarily highstress situation for him, which can have long-term impacts on his sense of self-esteem, connection to school, and engagement with authority figures. Instead, we will come to the school and meet with you in advance of the first test (scheduled for Tuesday). During that meeting, we, as William's parents, will sign the "Refusal to Test Form" and complete any other required paperwork that we deem appropriate and acceptable. Then, when William arrives at school on Tuesday, he can be taken directly to a non-testing room for meaningful instruction. Finally, we call for Waco ISD and TEA to agree to record William's STAAR test results as "not scored." To record them in any other way would be dishonest and inappropriate. Please contact us as soon as possible to schedule a time to meet so we can sign the "Refusal to Test Form". Sincerely,

Kyle Massey

Jennifer Massey

Cc: Ms. Mari Gonzalez