DC: Loudoun Computers Send Wrong High School Grades

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A computer problem at Loudoun County's Broad Run High School altered the grades of about 15 percent of the student body, forcing administrators to reissue report cards to all 1,320 students this week and to resend transcripts to dozens of colleges on behalf of seniors.

The glitch, which affected about 40 of the school's 365 seniors, decreased or increased first-semester grades mainly by a half-letter grade, said Wayde B. Byard, Loudoun County schools spokesman.

School officials did not discover the problem until early February, about a week after they mailed seniors' first-semester transcripts out to colleges, said Principal Edgar Markley. Over the past two days, administrators have resent, by certified mail, the new, accurate transcripts to colleges. They are now making follow-up phone calls to those colleges.

"This is something that should work in our school," Markley said. "We have enough to deal with other than this." He added: "But it's not that big of a deal. This is really not an issue at all."

For many parents and students, however, the glitch has made them more skeptical of technology.

"My daughter got back her mid-term in health class and got a D, when it really turned out to be a B," said Sharon Hiatt. "She's a freshman. She's not likely to go shuffle into the teacher's classroom and say, 'Excuse me, I'd like to talk to you about that test.' Instead, she just said, 'Oh, gee, I really blew it.' We just assume that whatever a computer tells us is right."

Last night, a meeting was held at the school for parents who were concerned about the problem. Only three came, and one who did said he thought more parents would have attended if they'd been given more notice.

Carson Mullen, whose daughter is a senior hoping to attend Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, is concerned that the school took too long to find and correct the problem. "The reaction should have been, 'This is a raging fire, do something about it,' " he said.

"Every tenth of a point counts when you get down to which kid in the big pile gets in" to a good school, Mullen said. At the extreme, it can affect a student's future earnings.

Doug Holmes, assistant superintendent for pupil services, told the parents that if they are concerned that a college that rejected their child had the wrong grades, Broad Run will contact the university. They'll determine whether the university had the correct transcripts when the admission decision was made.

Administrators said the computer program, which is being used for the first time this year by the Loudoun County school system, incorrectly averaged the combination of students' mid-term exams and their first- and second-quarter grades.

The software, called Star_Base, was created by Century Consultants, of New Jersey. It is used by all 48 schools in Loudoun County and in about 20 states.

Here's how it's supposed to work: Teachers fill out bubble-sheets on the students' grades and scan them into the computer. Star_Base transforms the bubbles into grades, said Doug Holmes, the county's assistant superintendent for pupil services.

This incident involving Star_Base is the first of its kind, said Century Consultants President Joseph Shearn. It's typical, he said, for software companies to get the blame for others' mistakes.

"My only reply to that is: Why were all the other high schools right and this one wrong?"

Broad Run technicians and administrators, who still have not figured out the problem with the software on their campus, were forced Saturday to transport all the students' grades to the county government's Department of Information Technology in Leesburg, where they were able to produce accurate report cards using the same software.

Human error was one of a few possible explanations for the problem, Holmes said.

"There is definitely the prospect of user error, someone simply not following instructions," he said.

County school officials were careful to characterize the situation as accidental.

"After the alleged incident at Lake Braddock, a lot of people are wondering if someone maliciously did something at Broad Run," said Byard, referring to reports this week of a guidance counselor who was placed on leave while Fairfax school officials investigate charges that she changed grades. "That is not the case at all; this is definitely a software glitch."

Washington Post

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001

Answers

Some links to school items on TB2000.

Y2K Closing 1,000 Schools

High school students keep waiting to find out test scores

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001


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