A group of parents in Kentucky are protesting along a highway in front of Betsy Layne Elementary School because district administrators don’t plan to rehire employees who “deliberately altered student exams and provided inappropriate assistance” to improve test scores.
A Kentucky Department of Education investigation into 2017 K-Prep test scores at the school identified four staff who were reported to the state’s Education Professional Standards Board for cheating students, and Floyd County Schools Superintendent Danny Adkins announced the district suspended the educators with pay.
Adkins told WYMT the district has no plans to hire them back.
“My duty is to protect the district’s students, staff and again, the integrity of the district and certainly that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.
That apparently doesn’t sit well with some parents, who described the decision to can the cheating teachers as “a major injustice.”
“These people are good people. They would bend over backward for every single child in that school and they have,” said Stephanie Williams, one of the protesting parents told the news site Tuesday. “What has been done to them is an injustice. It’s a major injustice.”
Angel Dye, another of the roughly half-dozen protestors, also defended the suspended educators, which included the school’s principal and vice principal.
“After everything that (they) have done for our kids and this community, everybody should be here supporting them,” Dye said.
“This just needs to be looked into more,” Williams added. “I think this was a rash decision.”
State officials invalided the school’s test scores in earlier this month after an investigation determined one teacher and three administrators corrected wrong answers and helped students through state tests, which state Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis described as “cheating,” according to the Associated Press.
“As I got the results you could notice there was a distinct difference” in scores at the school, Adkins said.
“What happened in the Floyd County School System is an embarrassment and a terrible wrong,” Adkins told Mountain Top News. “Our response will be one that you can take pride in and result in a system that is morally right and fair.”
He elaborated in a public statement about the situation Tuesday.
“The Floyd County School System, our teachers, support personnel, and people of the central office, exist for one purpose, the welfare of our children, which is served by giving them the best opportunity for quality education as the Floyd County School system can provide,” he wrote.
“That goal is made more difficult when any educational professional cheats the systems of assessment. Tests that are intended to enable us to see how well our children are learning is an important tool. It informs us of where we are and what we need changed to help our children learn better. Any act that cheats the testing not only gives misinformation as we try to teach our children it also harms every child seeking to learn.”
Parents protesting along the highway said they don’t care about test scores.
“I think the state needs to emphasize more on our children then them numbers and test scores,” Williams said.
Leave a Comment
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.