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Jun 30, 2009 4:42 pm US/Central
Dallas Kids Back In School For TAKS Retakes
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
It's not the way they thought they'd be spending summer vacation. But on Tuesday, hundreds of students from Lang Middle School sharpened their pencils and put on their thinking caps to retake the TAKS test.
Many parents were not happy about bringing their children back to the campus, but the Texas Education Agency and the Dallas Independent School District decided that it must be done.
"It's very inconvenient," said parent Arlicia Herron. "I feel like this
is something they could have done during the school year."
The students had to take the TAKS test all over again because officials found substantial and widespread irregularities in May. An investigation is on-going, and administrators aren't saying who cheated, but they are saying that it wasn't the students. According to officials, security was breached and the students are not to blame.
Regardless, parents brought their kids back to Lang Middle School on Tuesday to retake the TAKS test, a requirement for being promoted to ninth grade. More than 400 students were asked to return. According to the TEA, 293 of them showed up, while 115 did not. Those who did not show up can request a Grade Placement Committee review their grades to determine if they can move up to ninth grade.
The TEA was closely monitoring things this time around. Security was tight. Two people were in each classroom overseeing the testing, according to students. "There were so many eyes on us, we couldn't do nothing," said tester Raychelle Hale.
Shantranae Rollison and her brother said that they were unaware of the retesting. They drove up to Lang Middle School from San Antonio, but arrived four hours later and were not allowed in the building. "We just got here from out of town," Rollison explained. "We went up there, they were like, 'No, you all can't come in because you all were too late.'"
A spokesperson for the TEA said that the completed tests from Lang Middle School are now in a secure place, and will be forwarded to the private company that grades them by Wednesday. Pearson Educational Assessment is then required to return the graded tests to school districts within 10 working days.
Students should receive their test results in mid-July. The district's investigation into testing irregularities is expected to be completed in August.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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