Students across Texas started taking the state’s standardized tests this week.

One Weslaco ISD parent said his son is not participating in the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness for reading, writing, science and social studies test, or STAAR.

“It’s not necessary,” Colton Gammill said.

Gammill’s son is a 6th grade student at Dr. Armando Cuellar Middle School in Weslaco.

“It's just unneeded stress added to students, to administrators, to teachers, to parents as well,” Gammill said. “We've always been against it, we just never knew it was an option."

Gammill says he and his wife found information online that showed them how to get their kids to opt out of taking the tests. 

RELATED STORY: Texas will use computers to grade written answers on this year’s STAAR tests

School administrators pushed back at first, Gammill said, but they let his son sit in the library while his classmates got tested.

Carlos Robledo, Weslaco ISD’s executive director of communications, said although the district will not force anyone to take the STAAR test, there could be consequences for opting out.

“If they don't take the test, essentially they will be credited with a zero,” Robledo said. “And then if that happened — mandated by state law — they will have to go to active tutoring in order to catch them up because they received a zero on their test… that tells us that they are not progressing where they need to with their learning."

The district encourages parents concerned about the STAAR tests to set up a meeting with their school principal.

Watch the video above for the full story.