Mount Olive School District has just started the PARCC testing. Many students in the school district have refused to take the PARCC and have been placed in a alternative room to do a GRADED assignment. Studies show that 60% of participants will take the PARCC which in this district is the equivalent of 1,750 students or 5 full grade levels of Mount Olive Students. With numbers like that it makes perfect sense why so many students in this district have refused. The only problem is that Mount Olive School District is grading the alternative assignment, which is a SAT prep packet. It will be put into the students final grades, and will be used for class placement, or grade promotion. We need Mount Olive to not use this scare tactic of an assignment to force students to take the PARCC test. Mount Olive needs to respect students and not give them a grade on an assignment the entire student body does not have to do. Mount Olive has intimidated it's students, and made them feel that they are wasting their education if they refuse the test. They use multiple ways to scare students into taking the PARCC, but by far this way is the worst and harshest and it needs to stop. They need to not intimidate the students of this district by putting them up to punitive punishments for not taking a high-stakes, unproven test. They can not intimidate the students, the students have rights and it is unfair that this district feels they can ignore their rights and scare, intimidate, and harass their students into taking a test that has no benefits other than for the pockets of the school by doing this. Students should not be punished because they are refusing a test that hurts more than it helps. Finally, the High School should not have the students take the test to "compete" with surrounding school districts to see which school gets the highest scores. The students should not be grades or trophies to the schools.  The district and it's administrators have repetitively lied to the students with various things such as them losing funding or how long the test is by saying the test is less time than it it really is. Mount Olive needs to stand up for students, not step on them.