April 18, 2018 @ 4:25 p.m.
American Institutes for Research (AIR) notified and assured the Ohio Department of Education that the login system issue all Ohio schools experienced this morning during testing has been resolved. Therefore, Westerville City Schools will resume testing Thursday as planned.
Dr. Scott T. Ebbrecht, Director
Office of Assessment and Alternative Education
April 18, 2018
Dear Families of Westerville City Schools Students:
Overview
Throughout Ohio today, all schools administering the Ohio State Test experienced intermittent connectivity issues. Because we actively monitor network usage during these tests, it was readily apparent that this was not a local issue. Subsequently, we learned that the network issue involved the actual testing company, American Institutes for Research (AIR).
High School
This morning, students at each of our three high schools were taking either the State’s American History or American Government End-of Course Exam. If a student already had logged into Part I or Part II of the test, there was no connectivity issue and testing could be completed. However, students who submitted Part I and attempted to log into Part II experienced service interruption issues. As AIR was working to resolve these issues, students periodically were able to reconnect, upload Part II and begin testing again. The majority of our students successfully completed their entire test. However, providing connectivity is fully restored, any student unable to complete Part II will be able to do so tomorrow (April 19), alongside students scheduled to take the Biology End-of-Course exam that day.
Middle School
Because statewide connectivity issue occurred prior to our middle school students starting the grade 7 math test, and because intermittent connectivity issues continued into the afternoon today, we have decided that our best course of action is to reschedule this particular test to Monday, April 23. Assuming connectivity is fully restored, the grade 6 math test will be administered as scheduled tomorrow, April 19, with the grade 8 OST Science test taking place as planned on April 24.
Elementary
Given today’s statewide connectivity issues, Grade 3 students who were scheduled to take Part II of the Mathematics test will take the test on Monday, April 23. Providing connectivity issues are fully resolved, Grade 4-5 students will still take their math test on April 19 and 20. Grade 5 students are scheduled to take their OST Science test as planned on April 24-25.
Sincerely,
Dr. Scott T. Ebbrecht, Director
Office of Assessment and Alternative Education