The Lubbock Independent School District said about 50 students were impacted by the statewide glitch in the online STAAR test on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“The problem seemed to occur when logging in and not being able to log-on at all, or if they logged out to go maybe take a restroom break for a moment,” LISD spokesperson Nancy Sharp said. “When they went back the information that they already completed on the test was not visible.”
Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokesperson for the Texas Education Agency, said the glitch made it appear to students that all their answers and essays had been lost.
“The testing contractor, ETS, believes that the information was saved,” Ratcliffe said.
In a TEA press release issued Tuesday, Commissioner of Education Mike Morath said, “I cannot accept the transition to a new testing vendor as an excuse for what occurred. TEA also shares in the responsibility in the proper administration of these assessments.”
“This is not acceptable,” Ratcliffe said. “We certainly share some of the blame. He’s [Morath] not happy with our testing contractor and we will have more conversations how we can avoid this in the future.”
The TEA said most students in the state take the paper version of the test and only a segment of students were affected.
“Our staff and administrators did a great job of calming the waters,” Sharp said. “We’re going to figure this out we’ll contact TEA and just stay calm because that’s so important to not get students rattled, it’s already a very stressful day.”
The TEA said regular testing will resume Thursday morning and that all answers are working to be recovered.
