Testing times for area high school

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Except for a slight smell of smoke in the air, it was business as usual at Marshall High School, where an evacuation center had operated overnight.

Principal Daniel Harrison said attendance appeared to be down, but only by about 5 percent, and he attributed some of that to incorrect media reports that the school would be closed today. ‘It’s a little bit less than usual, but it’s not bad,’ he said of the attendance drop.

He thought that only a handful of Marshall High students had been evacuated from their homes.

The biggest inconvenience, Harrison said, involved two standardized tests that were scheduled for today. One of them, a makeup version of the state high school exit exam for about 100 students, was canceled and is expected to be rescheduled after consultation with state education officials. The test was canceled because some students were personally affected by the fire and others had been at the school until early today helping at the evacuation center. ‘We couldn’t expect them to score well on a test today,’ Harrison said.

The other test, for advanced placement calculus, was going ahead, but the school was allowing students to opt out and take it at a later date.

Because of some concerns about smoke, the school would not be holding any rigorous physical education classes today, giving students other options including watching sports training videos.

Harrison has been in the job for just one week. His first day was May 1, when other schools saw student walkouts for immigration rallies. Marshall High did not experience any walkouts but a week later was dealing with the fire. ‘It’s been an exciting introduction to Marshall High,’ Harrison said.

-Larry Gordon