<bt>As planned, students at Edison High School took the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests last May. However, when the score sheets were sent off to be graded, 108 score sheets got lost in the transition, forcing the students to retake the tests this fall.
Ray Diroll, Fairfax County Public Schools coordinator for testing, said approximately 200,000 multi-page answer sheets were sent off to the National Computer Systems in Iowa City, Iowa, but somehow some were delivered to the wrong address. According to school records, the tests were properly stored and secured before mailing. An investigation by the delivery service revealed that they were delivered to a nearby residence and the delivery service was never able to recover them.
"There was no way to have an expectation that this would happen. We use UPS, and they're about as dependable as you can get," he said.
Mary Shaw, school spokesperson, acknowledged the mishap.
"There were a number of score sheets [that] were not put with the others, they were delivered to the wrong address and they were lost," Shaw said.
Students had a summer to forget their Algebra II logarithms and history facts, and Diroll has heard a few complaints.
"As you'd expect, none of the parents were happy," Diroll said.
Seth Wellborn is an Edison sophomore. His brother was one of the students who had to retake the test.
"He did study for his Algebra II SOL," Seth said.
Melissa Paschall is a junior at Edison. She was aware of the test mishap but wasn't one of the students involved.
"It's not fair if you'd already taken the class," she said.
Although some students attended extra study sessions, Shaw was optimistic about the teaching methods. Shaw noted that students who were juniors in May and are now seniors need to take the tests to graduate, which might cause some pressure. If they did well on the test in May, and not as well when they retook it, there may be some disgruntled students.
"We like to hope that they were learning enough when they took the class," she said.