Kathy Hulcher is standards coordinator for Springfield Public School District 186, which means she's in charge of making kids take all those achievement tests. And when Kathy Hulcher heard this yarn a couple of weeks ago, she thought it was an April Fool's joke. It's not.
But it could make an interesting story problem.
So clean off your desks, get out your number 2 pencil, and don't turn this paper over until I tell you to begin. OK, question #1: If a truck was traveling from Springfield to Iowa, and a box full of 1,134 achievement tests fell off the truck, how many of the tests would be destroyed if the driver somehow ran over the box?
The answer, as it turns out, is 91.
That's the exact number of answer sheets--or "scantrons"--that were either lost or mangled when a box fell off a truck transporting Springfield students' Iowa Test of Basic Skills to Iowa City.
Seriously.
Bobby Long, a fourth-grader at Iles School, says he doubts his teacher would accept such a story if he tried to say his homework fell out of the car.
"I don't think she'd really believe that," Bobby says.
But Hulcher says incredible as it seems, it's true.
Delivery of the scantrons is part of the deal arranged by Riverside Publishing, the company that produces the test. Riverside routinely has tests delivered by Airborne Express. Hulcher says the folks at Riverside have been in communication with Airborne, and the driver says the mishap occurred at a stop somewhere between Springfield and Iowa City.
After realizing what had happened, the driver made an effort to retrieve the tests. Some blew away and others were in various states of disrepair. But even if only a corner had been torn off, the scantron could not go through the machine that grades the test. So the folks at Riverside painstakingly copied answers from the damaged scantrons, then checked and re-checked the new sheets to make sure the bubbles matched.
This process delayed the results for all District 186 fourth graders. Normally, test scores are announced around the first of March. This year, the results weren't available until the first of April.
There is no apparent pattern to whose test sheets got lost and whose did not, Hulcher says. "A couple of schools were not hit at all," she says. At Bobby Long's school, Iles--District 186's gifted magnet--five fourth-graders' test sheets were lost.
"I feel kind of mad and upset," Bobby says.
Bobby's classmate Milo Skalicky, whose test sheet was also lost, says he looks forward to re-taking the test. "To me, they're kind of fun."
Bobby doesn't have the same opinion. "They make me nervous," he says, "and they take too long."
Bobby and Milo may each get their wish. Hulcher says district officials have decided to give the 91 students several options, including skipping the test altogether or re-taking it in the fall. Students who choose to re-take the test will have the option of taking it during school hours or on a Saturday or after school, Hulcher says. A letter detailing all these options will be sent to parents next week.
Meanwhile, Hulcher says she has started noticing Airborne Express vans all around town. "I'd never noticed them before, but now I see them everywhere," she says. "And every time I see one, I get a flashback. I can just see our box of tests falling out of the van."
