FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, March 4, 2015

CONTACT: Daisy Gonzalez-Diego
Miami-Dade County Public Schools
305-995-2060

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS RESUMES COMPUTER-BASED TESTING ON THURSDAY, MARCH 5TH

Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho announced today that Miami-Dade County Public Schools will resume computer-based administration of the new Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) on a limited basis on Thursday, March 5th.

On Monday, March 2, the first day of administration of the computer-based FSA ELA/Writing component to students in grades 8 through 10, districts statewide experienced technical problems, which were later attributed to the new testing platform used by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) for Florida’s new FSA computer-based test.  This led Miami-Dade to suspend testing until the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) could provide assurances of a stable testing environment for students.  Testing was not interrupted for students in grades 4 through 7, who took paper-based tests.

FLDOE Commissioner Pam Stewart announced during a Senate committee meeting today, that she “feels with 100 percent certainty that everything is working as it should” with regard to AIR’s testing platform. This assurance was repeated at a statewide conference call this afternoon.  

“There is a window by which we need to test. Despite ongoing concerns across the state about login issues, time-out issues, and potential loss of data, we are legally compelled, on the basis of the Commissioner’s assurance of the system being at 100 percent, to move forward with assessments,” said Carvalho. “We will direct our schools to resume testing tomorrow on a limited basis, beginning with grades 8 and 9.”

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15-DGD/217/JS

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