TACOMA – More than 800 pages of WASL testing irregularities – including students throwing up on their test booklets and teachers providing a little too much help – were reported to the state last year.
Reports of deviations from state testing rules are sent each year to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction by school officials, teachers and parents. But only a few of these reports led to some kind of discipline, according to records obtained by The News Tribune through a public records disclosure request.
An Everett teacher gave students definitions of acute and obtuse angles and how many meters are in a kilometer.
“This departure from test protocol destroys the validity of these four test items and significantly impacts the credibility of the score results for these students,” Paul Dugger, the state assessment coordinator, wrote in a report. The superintendent’s office invalidated the tests. A complaint against the teacher is still being investigated.
An Orting Middle School teacher was relieved of testing duties after it was alleged that he explained questions to special-education students. Officials said the teacher also looked through completed test booklets and left tests unattended – breaking two other WASL rules.
The teacher wrote in a statement that he read two questions out loud, but did not explain them. He didn’t return to the district this year, but his departure wasn’t associated with the WASL incident, said Jeff Davis, Orting School District superintendent.
Other WASL rules prohibit disclosing questions in advance of a test, allowing students to discuss test questions during breaks or while testing, pointing to a student’s answer and encouraging further explanation and changing answers on a student test or suggesting changes.
Some errors apparently were accidental, such as useful posters hanging in classrooms, providing the wrong kind of pencils and teachers who misread test directions or had students start the wrong sections at the wrong time.
Irregularities also included fire alarms, nosebleeds and other illnesses. A booklet from Eatonville was returned to the testing company in a plastic bag because a student had vomited on it.
In Wenatchee, a middle school student who was in a car accident died during the testing period, leaving several students too upset to complete exams.
An Orting elementary school parent complained because she thought her child’s teacher looked through booklets and told students to go back and finish incomplete sentences. The principal and a district official investigated, but couldn’t find any evidence that the complaint was true.
Student behavior also made the list of irregularities, including an Auburn fourth grader who was disciplined for looking ahead in his test booklet to an upcoming test and then bragging about it to a friend.
In Pierce County, a Lakewood High School 10th grader got in trouble for using his cell phone during the test to send a text message after finishing his exam and turning it in. Another student had his test recommended for invalidation because he received a text message.
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