BREWER – Students who do well on the annual Maine Educational Assessment tests in Brewer could have their scores averaged into the Maine Learning Results, if the tests help improve the student’s standing, a new policy states.

“The assessment committee proposes that MEA scores, when they help students certify mastery of the Maine Learning Results, be weighted as 50 percent of the local assessment system,” Elaine Emery, Brewer director of instruction, told the Brewer School Department board of directors Monday.

After hearing Emery’s report, the board approved the policy unanimously.

In order to graduate in 2008, freshmen statewide must show proficiency in five Maine Learning Results subject areas in order to earn the new standard-based diploma.

Students will have to meet Learning Results standards in English, math, science, social studies and health-physical education.

Each school in Maine has, or soon will have, developed a local assessment system to determine whether a student has met the Learning Results. This LAS determines how students are tested, how often and how much MEA scores will count.

“Some districts are using MEAs as low as 10 percent, others as high as 90 percent,” Emery said.

This year’s Brewer freshmen, and the students that follow next year and beyond, will take up to 10 assessments a year to try to prove their Learning Results proficiency. They will be allowed to retest low scores up to four times during high school.

MEAs are given to all 11th-grade students, so scores would be available by the time they are seniors, Emery said. She said the new policy isn’t expected to affect that many students.

All students test differently, and there is a good possibility a low LAS score could be offset by an MEA score, Emery said.

The new policy could push students to try harder during MEA testing, Superintendent Betsy Webb said.

“I think it will motivate students to score well on their MEAs,” she said.