Schools Put to the Test as Exam Books Are Delayed

Panicked school officials in three Ventura County school districts are scrambling to reschedule Stanford 9 test dates after a computer breakdown and snowstorm delayed the arrival of exam booklets.

With testing scheduled to begin in the next two weeks, some local school officials hope a mailbox miracle will solve the glitches. Otherwise, they may have to make frenzied, last-minute changes to thousands of student schedules.

The Rio School District is scheduled to start testing 2,200 students Tuesday. “I’m very upset in my own way, but what’s the use?” said David Lopez, assistant superintendent. “I could hit a wall or yell at them, but what would it accomplish?”

Lopez fears that his district will have to reschedule Stanford--or STAR--testing until after spring break. That would mean results might not be back in time for use at parent-teacher conferences later this spring.

“We were supposed to get the materials 10 days before the testing date, so can we get our money back?” he asked. “It’s something like $445 or $446 a test, after processing.”

The large Oxnard elementary and Simi Valley Unified school districts are in similar straits, with testing planned to start in mid-March. The smaller Santa Paula Union High School District has already postponed its test start date from April 1 to April 13. Officials at most of Ventura County’s 16 other school systems hope they won’t be affected because they don’t plan to test until April or May.

The delivery problems are creating a mess for schools that have already altered classroom schedules for their original test dates, administrators said. Administrators in some year-round districts--such as the 15,386-student Oxnard School District--worry that some of their students might go on vacation before being tested.

Kathy Cooper, Oxnard’s administrator for information and support services, was anxiously awaiting delivery of 180 boxes of 60 Stanford tests each on Friday. If they had arrived by 5 p.m., Cooper figured she could still manage to start testing one track of students March 22.

But the Stanfords were a no-show.

As the booklets probably won’t arrive for two weeks, testing will have to be bumped back until after a monthlong April break for some students.

“I wasn’t sleeping at night,” Cooper said. “There are some concerns about testing right after vacation, so we’ll probably test the second week back. We don’t have a lot of choices here. They say it was an act of God.”

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Actually, it was acts of God and man.

Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement, the Texas-based test publisher, began sending the materials to school districts March 4, according to an inventory report. An estimated 75 school districts have received their test supplies, said Dave Osberg, the company’s senior director for the program. The company will double its shipping efforts this weekend to expedite deliveries.

Officials with Harcourt Brace blamed the shipping delays on a 14-hour computer crash and glitches in their software. Worsening matters, a Monday snowstorm in Iowa, where the test materials are printed and packaged, blocked delivery trucks.

“Districts are hopping mad, and I don’t blame them,” Osberg said. “By no means am I attempting to make an excuse. We are at fault, and we feel very bad about it.”

Schools are about to begin their second year of testing with the standardized exam, given to almost every student in the second through 11th grades. But the testing is done in waves, with some schools administering the exam earlier than others. The affected schools were all in the first wave of testing.

Sergio Robles, director of educational services for Santa Paula’s high school district, said it wasn’t a big hassle to reschedule tests for 1,200 students.

“Bigger districts might have a bigger problem,” Robles said. “All the people I needed to reschedule with were within 50 yards of me. We’re tiny. We can adjust. So we did.”

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In a letter to some state legislators, California Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin described the latest problems as a function of poorly written state testing regulations. The law now requires that Harcourt Brace contract with each of the state’s 1,000 school districts. Instead, Eastin said, a single contract with the state would provide closer oversight and a uniform mechanism to prepare and process the testing program.

“The frustrations in school districts throughout the state are at an explosive point,” Eastin said in the letter, citing complaints from two school systems. “If we are moving toward an era of accountability for student achievement, then our measure of achievement and the results for schools and students must also meet the highest professional standards.”

On Thursday, the state board of education reviewed the matter and listened to comments from a Harcourt Brace representative. Board members then voted to hold a full hearing next month to review the effect the delays have had on school districts.

“The [state Department of Education’s] legal unit is looking into what actions can be taken,” said state education spokesman Doug Stone. “We expect a full discussion on this with the board . . . to look at the implications and ramifications of this.”

Times staff writers Martha Groves and Liz Seymour contributed to this report.