As gas prices rise faster than the outdoor thermostat, parents such as Alma Garlington are thinking twice before making unnecessary trips this summer, bundling grocery shopping, post office stops and dry cleaning pickups into one trip.

But Garlington and thousands of other metro Atlanta parents will make one more road trip this week —- to their child's school to find out how their youngster scored on this year's controversial Criterion Referenced Competency Test.

Now that school is out, some districts such as Cobb County, are giving parents the option of picking up their child's CRCT scores at their local schools. Some schools are trying to save on postage.

"While we would like to provide money for postage so that schools can send the reports to parents, it is not something we have been able to find the funding for at this point," said State Department of Education spokesman Dana Tofig.

"The state doesn't give us money to cover that cost, and so we don't budget money to schools to cover those postage costs either," said spokesman Jay Dillon.

For Cobb, the pickup window is tight. The 107,00-student district set aside Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as the dates at local schools.

Otherwise, parents will have to wait until school starts again in August. Some Cobb parents have already received their child's CRCT scores in the mail. Some principals found postage money in their budget, or asked parents to bring in stamps to cover mailing CRCT scores. Gwinnett delays handing out student CRCT scores until the beginning of the new school year. "They are typically handed out in the fall. However, parents may request them over the summer if they wish to pick them up," said school district spokesman Sloan Roach.

Mailing them, she said, "would be very expensive."

At Mount Bethel Elementary in east Cobb, parents were asked to bring in three stamps to cover costs of mailing their child's final report card, something the PTA picked up until this year.

Principal Robin Lattizori said the cost would approach $1,500. The CRCT pick-up window is tight at Mount Bethel —- from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday because of a shortage of front office staffing on those days. Lattizori has opened another pick-up day in July as well.

Others such as Austell Intermediate give parents a shot at it from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the designated days.

Otherwise, parents must wait until August.

"I would be very upset to wait until fall to find out my daughter's scores," said Garlington, who likes to work with her Kennesaw Elementary rising third-grader on areas of weakness over the summer.

Garlington said swinging by Kennesaw isn't a hardship for her since she works at home, and the school is only three minutes away. But she wonders about parents who may not be able to take time off from work or may be out of town on vacation this week.

"I would be hollering if that was my case," she said. "It's soccer mom hours."

And, she said she doesn't think coming up with postage would be a budget buster for most principals or PTAs as a convenience for parents.

Marietta City schools, a smaller system with over 7,000 students, does mail out CRCT scores. It also mails report cards to parents, said spokesman Thomas Algarin. The district builds mailing costs into local schools' budgets allocated from the central office "as a cost of doing business."

DeKalb mails out its CRCT scores, too, said spokesman Dale Davis.

Students who failed reading or math areas for the exam required for promotion were notified before school was out if they need to go to summer school and retest. But many others are in the dark as to how they did on the state-mandated exams in language arts, math, science and social studies. Unless of course, their parents swing by the gas station, then head to school.