A DeKalb County Fire Department instructor let firefighters take home sample tests and answer sheets to use as study guides for an emergency medical technician test, Channel 2 Action News reported.
The instructor, Steven Norton, was ordered to undergo written counseling, but Fire Chief Darnell Fullum said he didn't consider the incident to be cheating.
“We don’t allow any of our information to be released, so he was disciplined for that incident,” Fullum said Tuesday.
Norton wrote that he wanted his eight students in December to be able to prepare for a 135-question EMT test, according to Fire Department documents obtained by Channel 2.
“I intended to use the test as a gauge for the students to see where they were at and what they need to improve on,” Norton wrote. “I am sorry for any problems this has caused. I was just trying to prepare the students with good study material to be successful in passing the AEMT registry test.”
Last month, Channel 2 reported that another instructor, Donald Malbrough, shared in-depth testing information with nearly two dozen recruits. Many of the recruits failed quizzes but then excelled on the actual tests.
Fullum suspended Malbrough for a week, though he hasn’t served the suspension yet.
All fire instructors need to uphold the integrity of training courses, Fullum said.
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