Flathead Valley Community College is changing how students will be evaluated for their course placements by replacing one high-stakes test with a medley of placement methods.

Brad Eldredge, the vice president of Instruction and Student Services, said the college was moving away from the Compass test, which places students into college-level or remedial courses. He made the announcement during a regular FVCC Board of Trustees meeting on Monday.

He said the college decided to phase out the nationwide multiple-choice exam after determining other methods could create more accurate placements.

Eldredge said sending students into a class that isn’t the right fit has detrimental effects.

“If we place them too high, they’re going to fail,” he said. “If we place them too low, then we’re wasting their time, their money, discouraging them and giving them the wrong message about whether they’re college material or not.”

FVCC’s decision to leave the placement test behind comes almost a year after American College Testing officials announced they will discontinue the test by December. Officials said the action came because of a national decline in use of the test due to a widespread distrust in its ability to place students.

According to a press release from the company, 1.7 million students took the test in 2014, down from 1.9 million in 2013 and 2.2 million in 2012.

In 2012, two studies by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College showed that a significant number students who took the Compass were inaccurately placed into remedial classes.

According to the center, nearly 70 percent of community college students are assigned remedial coursework. Less than 25 percent of students who take remedial courses finish a community college program or transfer to a four-year college.

At FVCC, one in four students, or 28 percent, tested into a remedial writing course after taking the Compass test, according to spring 2016 enrollment numbers.

Eldredge said the adaptive test is supposed to determine a student’s ability in writing and math. But he said because the Compass test is multiple choice, students were being evaluated by their ability to edit grammatical errors rather than writing.

“We’re going to take the radical step of placing students in writing courses based on how they write,” Eldredge said.

He also said students weren’t being tested in math relevant to their future coursework.

He said the goal is to use the new system as much as possible as students start enrolling for the fall semester. However, if the college runs into unforeseen challenges, Eldredge said the Compass will be available as a safety net until it’s discontinued.

In the college’s new system, recent high school graduates will be placed in a writing course based on their ACT writing exam scores. As of three years ago, all Montana high school juniors were required to take the test to graduate, making it an easy transition, Eldredge said.

Nontraditional students will be placed in courses based on a written response to a writing prompt, which will be graded based on a rubric developed by FVCC writing faculty. College faculty also will grade the student’s work.

He said for math, recent high school graduates will be placed based on a combination of their math ACT score, Algebra II grade — or equivalent — and overall grade point average.

Non-traditional students returning to college will be evaluated by “My Math Test,” a customizable test that can be based on what the student needs to know for the courses he or she is entering.

Eldredge said he believed the change would be revenue-neutral for the college since it no longer has to buy the Compass test.

ALSO at the meeting, the Board of Trustees appointed its board positions. Shannon Lund was appointed as the board chairwoman, Callie Langohr was appointed as the vice-chairwoman and Mark Holston was appointed as the secretary to the board.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at [email protected].