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On June 2, many successful Roosevelt seniors and family members congregated in the Roosevelt auditorium for Senior Awards Night. Each year,the accomplishments of the graduating class are commemorated at this event.

The program began with the introduction of the talented salutatorians and the exceptional valedictorian, Corey Dansereau, who was bestowed with enough awards to keep him standing for recognition for quite a while. Shandra Benito, Brenda Seymour and many others were also bestowed with a plethora of honorable awards and scholarships that are most definitely well earned.

The list seemed never-ending as student after student was mentioned and recognized for a variety of awards from the national merit scholar finalists to the students who received scholarships from their respective colleges.

With all of the students having been given their just rewards, the program came to a close and everyone dispersed into the commons to enjoy refreshments and celebrate their collective accomplishments.

The students of 2010 have been exceptional in many ways and this program accurately displayed these accomplishments.

By Hart Horner

Sophomores finish their first week of the HSPE as they walk out of their testing room.

Tenth graders all over Washington started a new test called the High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE) this week. “It’s exactly the same as the WASL, but with a new name,” Roosevelt sophomore Sam Carpenter said. The HSPE, which made its debut on Tuesday with the reading section, is one of two new state tests created to replace the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). The other test is the Measurements of Student Progress (MSP), which is for grades 3-8. Like the WASL, tenth graders must pass the HSPE in order to graduate from high school.

The test itself is almost identical to the WASL. The procedure is too. For the reading section, students are directed to open their booklets to the first page, where they are given examples of short answer questions, reason and result diagrams, and correctly filled in multiple choice bubbles. The questions on the test are based on short readings in the booklet. For the writing section students are asked to answer two essay prompts: one expository, and the other persuasive.

“The HSPE was easier than the WASL, and I thought the WASL was easy,” sophomore Tessa Vollrath said. Sophomore Mitchell Tokuoka agreed, adding, “I like the WASL better.”

The HSPE was created to be shorter than the WASL, and to take less time to score, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s website. The test has no long answer questions and, except for the writing section, takes only one day for each section, compared to two days for each section of the WASL. In an effort to save money for the state, the test will be moved online over the next few years.

The difference that stood out most to me was not that the test was easier or shorter. Rather, it seemed less formal. Unlike during the WASL, my proctor didn’t seem to care when, at the break, half the class kept working on their tests while at the same time talking to their friends.

Whether it’s called the WASL or the HSPE, Washington’s disdain for standardized testing hasn’t changed.