The New York State Education Department requires all students in the area of mathematics to successfully complete one Regents exam in order to graduate, for most students, that exam is the Algebra 1 exam. Students choosing to receive their Advanced Regents Diploma must successfully complete three Regents exams in the area of mathematics, which are as follows: Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 Regents Exams.
The exams are offered in January, June, and August (please note that the start times for the exam are at 8:00am and 12:00 p.m., not 9:15 and 1:15). Most Regents courses will culminate with the exam in June, however, January and August examinations are available for students taking them for a second time, or due to transferring in. The exams are each comprised of multiple choice and extended response questions. Students are given a maximum of three hours to take the exam, unless the student receives testing modifications. Teachers prepare the students for the exams throughout the year and typically have an intense review time just prior to the exam in order to prepare them for the style of questioning and format. The exams are later scored by other teachers within the math department and scores are then sent to the Regional Information Center to confirm the score. Students receive a scaled score and similar to the 3-8 testing are given a score between 1 and 5. The Regents Exam is required for Algebra 1 and 2, and Geometry classes as it counts as a final exam, students that do not participate in the exam receive a 0. Other math classes use a local final as part of their summative assessment.
Due to our transient population, students who move into the Indian River School District that have already taken the math courses listed above, are required to take at least the Algebra 1 regents to graduate from NYS. We provide a course, Intensive Algebra, that is intended to review the Algebra concepts and to prepare students for the Regents exam. This course is only for a semester (20 weeks) and is many times taken in conjunction with another math course.