SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. (KTIV) -
As part of a multi-year project set up by the Nebraska legislature some students will take the ACT test during their junior year.
It could become the new standard for testing for students.
South Sioux City High School students are preparing for a new challenge: Required ACT tests for juniors. South Sioux Superintendent Vernon Fisher says his school, one of several taking part in the state's experiment, has been eying the ACT for a while now.
"It will expose all of our students to the ACT and it will also give us really good information about where our kids are and then how can we improve as a system to ensure that we're providing those experiences," said Vernon Fisher, superintendent at South Sioux City high school.
Students at South Sioux City High School are one of eight Nebraska schools participating in the three year, $43,000 experiment.
"It gives them a chance to plan their future and also when you take the ACT and they're paying for our ACT, so if you do good, you can get scholarships and things like that," said Morgan Hansen, a junior at South Sioux High.
South Sioux sees it as a way to build upon the Plan and Explorer tests already given to younger students. Fisher says giving the ACT test earlier, and having the state help pick up the cost, should be a win-win for students and the school.
"We're doing a better job of matching those interests to the courses that they take and those interests that are beyond high school," said Fisher.
The ACT can be stressful, but taking it early would give juniors another opportunity to take it later.
"It would ease them, ease their mind, let them take it, so then they don't have to pay for it all. So, then, if they do do good for the ones who wouldn't think they would, they could possibly get scholarships that they wouldn't normally have applied for," said Hansen.
Students say the ACT won't only be challenging, but clarifying as well.
"I think the ACT would help me plan so that I could see scholarships from what schools because I have ideas of schools but not any direct plan of what I want to do yet," said Hansen.
Creating that vision and an improved curriculum is just one of many benefits students and teachers believe may come from an early ACT.
If this program fares well, Nebraska would join six other Midwest and Mountain West states who have public school juniors take the ACT.
