Parents react to cheating allegations at Beacon Hill International School

SEATTLE — For the first time, KIRO 7 is hearing from parents about a cheating scandal at Beacon Hill International School in Seattle.

The state threw out the elementary school’s test scores after investigators determined there were so many erasure marks on tests that the results were just too good to be true.

The state superintendent's office determined the scores from last year's state-issued test last spring were abnormally high when compared to scores from previous years, in addition to the erasure marks on the tests themselves.  The superintendent’s office concluded its investigation last week and the district sent letters home to parents this week.

Wednesday morning, most of the parents dropping their kids off at Beacon Hill International told KIRO 7 a cheating scandal is upsetting, yet not entirely surprising.

"I think teachers are pushed very hard with limited resources, and I can see desperate people sometimes do desperate things, and I think it’s tragic,” said Joel Nofziger, who was dropping his daughter off at Beacon Hill.

But Christina Lee, whose 5^th-grader took the test, is convinced if there was cheating, no one in the building is responsible.

"I don't like people accusing them of cheating because we're not cheating,” she told KIRO.  “The kids are working hard and the teachers are working very hard."

We took a look at the numbers from the state superintendent to see what some of their red flags were.  In one section, more than 97 percent of Beacon Hill students got all the multiple choice questions right, where only 12 percent of students ranked high performing did the same.

KIRO 7 went back to Seattle Public Schools Wednesday morning to ask who had access to those tests.

"I would assume the students take the test, they turn them in to their teacher,” spokesperson Stacy Howard said.

The state superintendent's office told us they only require that testing materials are immediately returned to the school's assessment coordinator but they don’t address what needs to happen next.

SPS says higher test scores aren't tied to funding, but they are tied to teacher evaluations.  And SPS says as much as parents like Lee would like to believe the kids all performed really well, there is no way they did as well as the test results suggest.

"There was reason to flag it,” Howard concluded.

Seattle Public Schools provided the following information about the chain of custody of testing materials:

The chain of custody is as follows:

The test materials arrive in sealed boxes at the school. The school’s designated Test Coordinator is responsible for storing them in a secure locked location with limited access by staff. The storage location and the names of any individuals with access to this location must be documented and submitted to the District Assessment Coordinator.

On the day of the test, the tests are distributed to the classrooms with an accounting of the number of tests that go to each teacher.

Following the test, at the end of test period (typically no more than 3 hours) the tests are returned to the secure location and checked-in by the School Test Coordinator.  Tests are required to remain secure in the locked location until all tests have been administered, including make-up tests.

Once all tests have been completed and accounted for, the tests are hand delivered to the central warehouse by the School Test Coordinator. This is done by appointment with the District Assessment Coordinator who goes through a detailed process with the School Test Coordinator to ensure proper coding has been completed for all tests and all materials are sorted and processed properly for delivery to the test scoring company. The boxes are then sealed and labeled for shipping by the District Assessment Coordinator.

Changes for spring 2015:

State testing is transitioning to a new computer based process in 2015 that will be much more secure. For the few remaining paper-based state tests (e.g., MSP science, Algebra EOC, Biology EOC), the District plans to institute the following changes:

Provide each school with portable locked storage unit that can be located in a secure room with limited access.  Only one key for the portable locker would be available to the School Test Coordinator.  No other staff would have access. (This proposal has not gone through a budget approval process.)

Institute a new audit checklist that can be used by District administrators to spot check schools before, during and after testing to ensure all tests are secure and the test protocol is followed during test administration.

Shorten the appointment window for returning tests to within 1-2 days after the completion of testing. This will be accomplished by hiring one additional full time staff member plus seasonal part-time help to support a significantly faster process for checking in completed tests.

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