In the most heated and contentious debate at last night’s Cumberland County Board of Education meeting, the Board took up the issue of the validity of TNReady test scores. The board voted 5-3 with one abstention to – provided the state leaves the matter in local hands – “hold harmless everyone we can hold harmless.” That would include the district, the schools, the teachers and the students.

Dr. Rebecca Wood reported final state-level decisions haven’t been made yet, but things are in flux at the moment. “We don’t have the official legislation,” Wood said. “You had been hearing that students would be held harmless with TCAP [scores, but] last night the legislature changed gears.”

All indications had been the state would move to “hold harmless” everyone regarding this year’s test scores. “All the way down: Districts, schools, teachers and students… all of that is held harmless,” Wood said.

Superintendent of Schools Janet Graham said she’s seen evidence from other school systems across the state regarding major issues with the testing. “Superintendents are outraged – they’re absolutely outraged,” she said. “It’s been outrage in the state. In Cumberland County we have not been impacted to any great degree.”

Dr. Wood said issues within the Cumberland County schools have been few. “It is our technology department and it is our schools and our testing coordinators. They have absolutely knocked it out of the park,” she said.

Wood said they were going to ask that test scores for grades 3 through 8 not be included in the students’ final grades on their report cards. Still, she said, she’s “pretty confident” in the high schools’ test results.

One concern mentioned was that if the high schoolers’ test scores were counted, all students’ scores would have to count – scores are valid for the 2017-2018 school year, system wide. If the scores for students in grades 3 through 8 are discarded because of testing issues, all test scores would necessarily have to be scrapped – which some attendees said would be unfair to students who scored particularly well. And then there would be the question of what to do about test scores for those students who graduated mid year.

If the state does decide to set aside test scores for 3rd through 8th grades, the local school systems’ hands would be tied, Graham said. “Everything that could be done in Cumberland County has been done, by our administrators, by our technology people, by our testing coordinators… We can’t help what has happened. If the state ultimately says they don’t count, they don’t count.” she said.

Board member Jeff Freitag asked, “What guarantee do we have that the state isn’t going to hold teachers accountable for that? If the district and teachers and administration are going to be held accountable, then the students should be held accountable as well.”

“That ‘hold harmless’… that still caused some damage,” Wood said, explaining some students have taken a ‘who cares?’ attitude regarding the testing, having heard of all the problems with the testing.

“Kids are accustomed to it bombing,” Graham said. “This is not the first year we’ve had a fiasco.”

Stone agreed. “The entire system went down today; that’s an issue,” he said.

“I thought the big issue was whether or not our school system would count their scores as part of their final grades,” Robert Safdie said. “We’re not going to be included in that however-many-there-are that will get that report card.”

Chairman Bowman suggested tabling the matter pending additional information. Graham said a decision would need to be made before May 22.

Quiet through most of the debate, Board member Aretie Patterson spoke up. “It seems to me the whole thing is messed up,” she said, suggesting taking up the matter again next school year. “The whole thing has been compromised.”

In the end, the Board decided on the hold-harmless solution.