Security is tight during CSAP test season

In the back corner of the Widefield School District 3 warehouse last week, four employees sorted through nearly 6,000 pounds of Colorado Student Assessment Program testing materials.

They counted and re-packaged 194 boxes of test booklets and administrator manuals to be delivered to schools so students can begin taking the annual tests Monday.

Students in grades three through 10 take tests in reading, writing and math. Grades five, eight and 10 also get a science test.

The tests are watched as closely as evidence in criminal cases because the stakes are high.

Scores, typically released late in the summer, are used to calculate a school’s “adequate yearly progress” under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and the state School Accountability Report. Scores also are used to determine a school’s accreditation.

But before students open a test booklet, school and district officials must account for each one, then keep it secure through the monthlong testing period.

In the Widefield warehouse, the screech of packing tape resonated as Suzanne Royer, the district’s director of student achievement, and three other employees taped boxes of testing materials to be delivered to schools.

Rover said she’s an expert at packing Christmas gifts after her experience packing CSAP tests.

“I usually tell people we’re getting ready for our next jobs at FedEx,” said David B. Thomas, Colorado Springs School District 11’s director of assessment.

The area’s largest districts have similar systems for counting and distributing CSAP test materials.

In D-11, roughly 18 to 20 pallets — with about 30 boxes on each — are delivered to the district warehouse, Thomas said. The boxes are delivered to the schools, where employees count the tests, ensuring they have the number of materials listed on the packing list.

Once in the schools, the tight security continues.

In Harrison School District 2, tests are kept behind two locked doors, said Data Management Supervisor Margaret Ruckstuhl.

If a teacher is giving a test in the morning and a test in the afternoon, only one test is signed out at a time, Ruckstuhl said. Once the test is complete, materials must be returned to the secured area.

“There is no lag time at all,” Ruckstuhl said.

Security doesn’t stop there.

If a student in Widefield, for example, moves to a different school within the district during the testing period, Royer is the only person who can take the student’s test from one school to the other.

At the end of the testing, each school’s materials are loaded in a truck to be returned to the warehouse. Royer said the School Assessment Coordinator must follow the truck back to the warehouse to make sure nothing happens to the materials in transit.

It’s also at the end of testing when D-11 pulls out the precision scales to make sure every booklet is returned, Thomas said. The district weighs the tests rather than count them.

If tests or other materials are missing, someone is sent to the school to find them.

Everything must be returned — the answer sheets, the test booklets, even “test booklets that have been vomited on,” Thomas said.

Thomas said the rules and procedures create a standardized environment so a student’s score in Grand Junction means the same as a student’s score in Colorado Springs.

The CSAP testing window runs from March 10 through April 11.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0394 or shari.griffin@gazette.com