As I reported yesterday -- a school burns down, and the biggest concern of the state of Texas is -- making sure the kids retake the TAKS test since the answer sheets from the original administration were destroyed in the fire.

State education officials have approved a plan to let high school students whose TAKS tests burned up in a deliberately set fire to retake the exams, possibly as early as next week, officials said.

The test results were destroyed when the fire heavily damaged Needville High School early Monday in rural Fort Bend County. The tests were administered last week.

"Once we determine a date when they are actually going to conduct the testing, then we will ship those materials out to them," Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said Tuesday.

Marchman said the tests could be sent to Needville at the end of this week so that ninth-, 10th-, and 11th-grade students could take the state-mandated exams sometime next week.

The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is an annual statewide standardized test used to measure student and school performance.

Classes for high schoolers will resume Monday with students going to school on a staggered schedule, said Needville Independent School District Superintendent Curtis Rhodes.

"With the classroom space that is available, we will just kind of double up and share the classrooms," Rhodes said.

Only 19 instructional days remain in the school year.

Like they don't have better things to do with those last four weeks of school.

Shameful -- just shameful!

Posted by: Greg at 10:41 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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