Delays Plague 2nd Round of School Tests : Education: Late delivery of materials disrupts scheduling by campuses, sparking further criticism of troubled CLAS program. A distributor is preparing a report on the extent of the problem.

Hundreds of schools throughout the state have had to postpone the second round of California’s controversial standardized tests because of delays in delivering the exam materials, causing scheduling conflicts and administrative headaches.

Many Southern California school districts, including Simi Valley Unified and Ventura Unified, that were supposed to give the California Learning Assessment System tests during the last few weeks have been forced to put plans on hold because materials did not arrive in time. Most have now received their packages--a week or more later than expected--but some were still waiting Wednesday.

“In essence, it’s thrown our whole testing schedule into chaos,” said Peter J. Boothroyd, assistant superintendent of the Brea-Olinda Unified School District. “How we’re going to undo that mess will be determined by what day they arrive. If the tests arrive tomorrow we’ll be OK, but we don’t know. . . . We’re just sitting on hold.”

In Ventura County, school officials in Fillmore and Ventura were forced to postpone planned testing dates to later this month or May.

And in the Simi Valley Unified School District, 100 boxes full of tests originally scheduled to arrive last week were not delivered until Tuesday because of trucking and printing delays, said Rebecca Wetzel, the district’s testing coordinator. Simi Valley principals were expected to pick up the tests by today, with schools administering the exams on Friday and during the next two weeks.

State officials are unsure how extensive the delivery problem has been. Minnesota-based Questar Data Systems, the company hired to package and deliver the tests for the state, is preparing a report detailing how widespread the delays were and how much extra it will cost, state Department of Education spokeswoman Susie Lange said.

Lange attributed the delay to “just a series of problems . . . with moving millions of sheets of paper” and said Questar was not entirely responsible for the delay. Despite the problems, she said, all eligible students will be able to take the tests this spring.

Now in its second year, CLAS will test well over 1 million fourth-, fifth-, eighth- and 10th-graders at a cost of $26 million. Several private companies in California and out of state handle parts of the processing under state contract, and testing dates are staggered based on school schedules.

Although tests have only been delayed about a week in most cases, the situation has launched further criticism of CLAS, which in recent weeks has been attacked because of problems in scoring last year’s tests and by conservative groups that are outraged over its content.

“For most schools, it’s just an inconvenience,” Lange said of the delays. “I’m not minimizing that, but there were no costs incurred for them. It’s just a matter of rescheduling.”

But local school officials are worried that CLAS will now conflict with other standardized tests planned for later in the spring or other scheduled events such as field trips, open houses or staff development days.

“We put out to schools in August the testing calendar for the coming year and they try to schedule other things around that,” Los Angeles school district testing coordinator Linda B. Lownes said. “Now this piles a lot of tests on top of each other and schools will be trying to give the CLAS tests at times they have . . . other things planned.”

Hundreds of Los Angeles schools were scheduled to administer the tests this month, Lownes said. Calling the situation “very, very disruptive,” she said the district has postponed CLAS three times and now plans to give CLAS between May 4 and June 3--the same period previously set aside for the California Test of Basic Skills, which is also given to all students.

Administrators also said they are frustrated that arrangements they made for CLAS testing are now for naught, and that there is less time to sort through the material and train teachers to give the new segments of the tests.

And although principals typically warn students, teachers and parents of testing days to encourage attendance, a good night’s sleep and a healthful breakfast, some administrators said now they now will be forced to spring the tests on children with no notice.

According to the state’s plan, each school district was to give the tests between its 135th and 155th day of instruction, with some starting in March and others testing through the first weeks of June, but most scheduled for April and May. Schools planning to test next week or afterward should not have any delays, Lange said.

Questar was supposed to collate and deliver the exam packages on a rolling schedule that matched each school’s calendar and testing plan.

The disruptions began last month. Administrators who were awaiting arrival of the tests instead received a series of memos from Questar announcing the delays. None explained the cause.

CLAS will test students in reading, writing, math, science and history and measure performance against tough statewide standards. Results of the 1993 tests released in March painted a grim portrait of California students, with one-third demonstrating little or no understanding of basic math concepts.

Times correspondents Maia Davis and Julie Fields contributed to this report.