MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Several Mid-South schools have either received their TNReady tests later than expected or are still waiting for them to arrive.
Shelby County Schools students are scheduled to start taking the state’s new TNReady tests in the next few days, but tests have still not been delivered to many schools.
WREG reported last week how several Mid-South school districts were still waiting on paper test materials to arrive after the online version of the test failed.
“They were just saying the other day at the school, y’all are going to be doing the test, y’all are going to be doing the test. When?” questioned parent Marquita Weaver.
Many parents are baffled. More delays in shipments of paper tests made parents wonder Tuesday if TNReady will ever be ready.
Last week, the state Department of Education told WREG that SCS would receive TNReady’s Part One tests no later than Tuesday, March 8.
“We have not received many elementary or middle school testing materials. We’ve got about 149 schools that we still need to get,” said SCS Director of Assessment and Accountability Brant Riedel.
He said most SCS high schools have received their testing materials, but a few are still waiting.
Riedel said currently, the district has high schools scheduled to begin testing Thursday and younger students to start Friday. He said schools waiting for shipments could likely start a day later than what is planned. The district plans to complete Part One of testing before spring break.
“Basically, we want them to know we are going to get this done. We apologize that we keep changing the schedule, but it really is based on when materials come in,” Riedel said.
The state Department of Education said, “The original shipping schedule was based on what the test vendor expected to be able to deliver; however, based on printing capacity, the vendor had to alter this timeline … we have always planned for tests to be delivered to districts on a rolling basis.”
“I think that they should, they should have been well-prepared for this test. You know, you knew it was coming up,” parent Catherine Farris said.
The state said it shipped testing materials directly to SCS schools to save time. It said materials have been shipped to more than 135 districts.
The Achievement School District was supposed to receive its testing materials by the weekend but just got its shipments Tuesday.
Bartlett City Schools received its final shipments of tests Tuesday and plans to begin testing Wednesday.
Tipton County Schools said its tests are to be shipped Tuesday night, so it is currently looking at testing next week.
Germantown Municipal Schools received its paper tests on time and will be done testing by the end of this week.