My Kid Took The NY ESS Regents: What Other New York Parents Should Know
Last June, I waited for my 8th grader outside our upstate New York middle school, idling at the curb next to an overflowing bin half-full of discarded granola bars and crumpled test review sheets. The air was already sticky at 11 a.m., and my melted chocolate chip cookie sat sweating in the cupholder, the after-test treat I’d promised. When Lila finally pushed through the double doors, she didn’t wave or run for the car like she usually did. She dragged her backpack over, dropped it in the backseat, and slid in, slamming the door harder than necessary. “Half my class didn’t finish the lab practical,” she said. “I got to station three and they called time before I could finish writing down the mineral cleavage notes. What even was that?”
I was confused, because we’d prepped like we were supposed to. Her teacher held after-school review every Tuesday for a month, we bought the Barron’s review book off Amazon for $19, and Lila had scored an 86 on the two full practice tests she’d taken the weekend before. I knew the ESS Regents was the first high-stakes Regents most kids take, usually in 8th grade to knock out a high school science credit early. But I’d never heard how much could go wrong that had nothing to do with what your kid knows. I went home that night and posted in our local parent Facebook group: Did anyone else take the ESS Regents this week and have a chaotic experience?
The comment thread blew up within an hour. Forty comments, from parents all over the state: Long Island, Rochester, Brooklyn, even a few from the North Country. One mom from Rochester said her kid’s proctor shaved 10 minutes off the practical time because he wanted to leave early for his son’s little league championship. Another mom from Brooklyn wrote that half the lab stations at her daughter’s school had broken rock samples, so kids couldn’t correctly identify mineral texture no matter how well they’d studied. A dad from Syracuse said his son finished the whole written portion but his answer sheet got misfiled by the school’s testing coordinator, and it took three weeks to even get it scored. No two stories were the same, but every single one had the same thread: the score their kid walked away with didn’t match what they knew how to do.
That’s when I realized how little information most of us get going into this. The school sends home a half-page flyer with test dates and a reminder to get a good night’s sleep, but no one tells you that the lab practical, which counts for almost a third of your total score, is administered differently at every single school. The timing is up to individual proctors, the station setup is up to the school’s science department, and tiny, unforced errors can add up to enough points to drop a passing score to a failing one, or a score good enough for honors to just regular passing.
When Lila’s score came back three weeks later, she got a 78. One point below the 79 she needed to count the credit toward her Regents diploma with honors, a goal she’d been working toward since she started middle school. I was frustrated, but I also assumed that was just how it went—you take the test, you get the score, you retake it if you need to. Then I called her school counselor to ask about retake dates, and she told me something I had no idea was an option. Because Lila’s teacher had already documented that the rotation timing was off for half the class that test day, the district could file an appeal with the New York State Education Department to waive the one-point requirement for the honors credit. I didn’t even have to fill out that much paperwork. The district handled most of it, and it got approved in two weeks.
That experience made me put together a few concrete things that I tell any parent who asks about the ESS Regents now, things no one told me before we took it. First, talk to your kid about what to do if something goes wrong during the test, and practice it before test day. I don’t mean just “speak up for yourself.” I mean sit down at the kitchen table and do a 2-minute role play: “If the proctor calls time before you finish your answers, what do you say?” Have them practice saying out loud, “I haven’t finished this section, can you please note that on my answer sheet?” Most 13-year-olds have never had to advocate for themselves on a high-stakes test before, and they’ll just stay quiet and assume they messed up if you don’t practice this.
Second, if your kid comes out of the test saying something went wrong, send an email to their teacher and school counselor that same day. Don’t wait until scores come out three weeks later to bring it up. If the issue gets documented right after the test, it’s way easier to file an appeal or adjust things later than if you try to go back months later to prove what happened. Most schools are willing to help—they see the same issues every year, they just don’t go out of their way to tell parents it’s possible to fix.
Third, don’t automatically assume a lower score means your kid didn’t study enough. I talked to so many parents who blamed their kid’s poor study habits before they found out the whole class had the same timing issue. The ESS Regents, especially the lab portion, has so many variables outside of your kid’s knowledge that it’s worth checking in with the school before you decide your kid needs to spend all summer re-prepping for a retake.
Lila’s 9th grade now, and she’s prepping for the Biology Regents next June. We already did our role play about speaking up, and we’re planning to do a timed practice of the lab station rotation next month, just to get her used to the speed. I still see new posts in that parent group every exam cycle that start the same way: “Did anyone else take the ESS Regents and have this happen?” The system still doesn’t do a great job of telling parents what their options are, and there’s still way more variability in the test experience than the state likes to admit. It’s not a perfect fix, but knowing what steps to take ahead of time takes a lot of the stress out of it, for you and your kid.
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