BISD INVESTIGATES POTENTIAL EXAM TAMPERING AT PACE

By Juan Montoya

The Brownsville Independent School District has launched an investigation to determine if administrators at Pace High School may have gained access to the grades on the 11th-grade exit exams which, if changed, could potentially jack up the school's graduation scores, sources said.
"This test determines whether a student graduates from high school," a source said. "It also shows how the school academic performance is and naturally would show how Rose Longoria, (new school principal) has improved the school since she took the campus (in 2011)."
If the investigation finds that grades were changed to improve scores, the test may be considered voided and a new test would have to be administered by the state.
Although the administration of BISD Superintendent Carl Montoya and district director for Assessment, Research and Evaluation Raul Vasquez have not made a public comment on the matter, sources indicate that either a district monitor or a test coordinator made a report to superiors of "irregularities" concerning the exams.
With Spring Break underway, it is expected that the investigation and its findings will be completed by Vasquez sometime after that and handed to the administration– then hence to the board of trustees – sometime after next week.
Sources close to the school indicate that BISD policy states in no uncertain terms that "no principal or staff should have access to or change or modify any test..."
At every school, a person is assigned test coordinator with the responsibility of coordinating, administering, packing, collecting, and sealing all materials and then send them to Austin. He or she has put their state certification on the line if there is any tampering with the test.

Additionally, a monitor is assigned to each school to assure the integrity of the testing process.
Reportedly, the test in question here is the 11th grade exit text. This test in effect determines whether a student graduates from high school. It also shows how the school's academic performance will be rated by the state.
If Vasquez (and the state) finds that tampering indeed did occur, the test can be considered voided and a new test would have to be administered by the state. This also effects the validity of the districts extracurricular activities, such as UIL, football, baseball, band, chess, volleyball, soccer and other actives such as these. The district – as does every other district in the state – operates under the state's "no pass, no play" rule.
According to our sources in the BISD, there is a report indicating that someone saw Principal Longoria and her Assistant Principal Ms. Carla Gonzales in the room where the finished exams were kept.
Whether there was any tampering with the exams will have to wait the findings of Vasquez's investigation, but the rumors of potential wrongdoing have spread far and wide within the BISD's mid-level administrators and its faculty.
Longoria, a rising star in the district after her meteoric rise as the former principal at Lucio Middle School, took over Pace, a low-performing high school, in the 2011 school year.
At the time, she said that with the state-mandating new testing, she had no doubts the students would "be up to the task."
“I inherited a school that was already in forward motion,” Longoria said at the beginning of the school year. “We want to continue that momentum. ... Everyone wants to see Pace as an exemplary campus and they’re not going to rest until we get it back up there.”

Longoria's performance at Lucio caught the attention of the BISD administration and resulted in her promotion to Pace. While at Lucio, the school's ranking rose from the 48.3 percentile among middle schools in the state in 2008 to the 79.7 percentile in 2009. The school, also placed in the 72.0 percentile in 2010, the last year she was there.

Its state ranking has fallen ever since.

Meanwhile, at least one trustee said she was unaware that any such probe was underway. Trustee Minerva Peña said she had not been contacted by the administration that any such incident was reported at Pace or that she had been assessed of the matter by any other source.

"No one has told me anything about this," she said. "If something like this had happened, I'm sure that Dr. Montoya would have informed all of us about it."

But others, such as Catalina Presas-Garcia, said the administration had assured her and other trustees that the Vasquez probe would be carried forward without bias or favor.

"We need to be fair and give Mr. Vasquez the time to look into this and get to the bottom of this matter," she said. "The integrity of the testing process must be unquestioned. This is not only for the protection of the district, but also for the benefit of the students. No student should be sent up to another grade if he doesn't get his passing scores honestly. If the administrators did something wrong, they should face the consequences."