A Brooklyn intermediate school flunked an entire eighth-grade class and told the kids they’d have to attend summer school — because bungling education officials lost their state English exams, The Post has learned.
Panicked 13- and 14-year-olds at IS 227 in Bensonhurst said their dreams of a fun summer were dashed yesterday when they were handed letters that barred them from attending their graduation this Friday.
The letters, written on school stationery, said students wouldn’t be promoted unless they attend summer school and pass a city-issued English exam in August.
“The Board of Education should take responsibility for losing our tests. It’s not fair that we have to give up our summer because of something that wasn’t our fault,” said 13-year-old Mindy Tong.
“My family has summer-vacation plans, and it isn’t right that we might have to change them,” she added.
“I was sure that I did well and that I was going to graduate. Now I’m unsure of everything.”
To make matters worse, the letters home make no mention of misplaced exams — even though a half-dozen students told The Post their guidance counselor said they couldn’t graduate because the city had lost their results.
Instead, the letters pin the blame squarely on the students’ allegedly poor results.
“Your child’s performance on assessments . . . indicates that your child has not met the New York City Promotion Standard for English Language Arts,” reads the letter from Principal Brenda Champion.
After inquiries from The Post, Department of Education officials insisted that 25 students had been mistakenly handed the notices of failure.
They said the tests weren’t lost, but that the answer documents were accidentally packed into the wrong box — so that they hadn’t reached the scoring site yet.
Students took the exams back in the middle of April.
“We are communicating with these families that this letter should not have been sent due to the delay in scoring for this class’ [English] exams,” said DOE spokeswoman Erin Hughes.
“The exams will be scored by [today], and families should receive the appropriate promotion communication before the moving-up ceremony on Friday.”
Again, classic Bloomberg administration M.O. - screw something up, blame someone else, only try and right the wrong when caught in public.
This travesty happened to eighth graders, but just wait until all the NYCDOE and McGraw-Hill incompetence with the Regents exams scanning and scoring process plays out next week.
There will be thousands of students in high schools facing this same travesty.
0 comments:
Post a Comment