State education officials said Friday they will not have some results from its Georgia Milestones End of Course tests until at least next week, meaning thousands of middle and high school students — whose classes ended this week — must wait to learn their final grades in some courses.
The delay is another bad mark for the administration of this year's Milestones exams. The Georgia Board of Education earlier this month allowed schools to waive the test results when deciding whether to hold back third, fifth or eighth grade students, after many stories from schools about technological glitches that disrupted the Milestones tests.
The End of Course test scores under law must count for at least 20 percent of a student’s grade in the course.
In Gwinnett County, the state’s largest school district, about 3,000 students will have to wait until next week to get all of their final grades. Gwinnett has about 176,000 students. If a student’s final grade for the class is below 70, the school will contact the student’s family regarding summer school options, Gwinnett officials said.
Gwinnett school district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said they have results for high school seniors, so it will not impact students who are graduating.
About 1,000 Fulton County students will be impacted by the delay, school district officials said.
Knox Phillips, director of DeKalb County’s Office of Research, Assessments and Grants, said state officials promised him all scores will be back by Tuesday.
“The state has apologized profusely,” said Phillips, who expects counselors to assume the task of entering grades since Friday is the last day for teachers.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods contacted superintendents in every Georgia school district Friday afternoon updating them about the problem.
“Like schools and parents, we are greatly disappointed, as we planned and worked with our testing contractor to deliver a two-week turnaround,” Woods wrote. “That obviously did not happen for many districts, so we will be conducting a thorough review as soon as possible to address these issues and streamline the process.”
State officials earlier this month gave school districts the option to retest after the technical problems administering the exams. Cobb County school officials said last week it would not retest students because of delays in getting Milestones results.
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