De-stressing to cope with NCLB testing

 It might be easy to dismiss the toilet-papering project going on inside Penny Cooper’s fourth-grade classroom late last week as having little to do with standardized tests. However, it’s exactly how Cooper, a teacher at Meadow Lark Elementary in Great Falls, Montana, keeps her students at ease a week before they launch into the testing mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

“This is totally to try and relieve the stress from the test,” Cooper said. “They would be so burned out, but this stuff they look forward to.” Each spring, students across the country participate in week-long testing to determine if students, schools and districts are making adequate yearly progress, as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act. Read more about “stress-busting” in The Great Falls Tribune online.