Allen School in Chula Vista loses score on teacher cheating concerns

School loses score on teacher cheating concerns
Karen Kucher
SDUT
Nov. 15, 2011

CHULA VISTA — The state didn’t issue a key academic performance score for a Chula Vista elementary school this year after several fifth-grade students told their homeroom teacher they had seen passages of the English language arts test material prior to taking the state exam.

Allen School, a 300-student school in the Chula Vista Elementary School District, reported the irregularity to the state Department of Education in May.

As a result, the school was not issued an Academic Performance Index or API score for 2011. The district did receive score information for individual students, classes and grade levels.

“It was brought to the attention of the principal there,” said district spokesman Anthony Millican. “It was dealt with swiftly and decisively.”

Millican said the teacher is no longer employed in the district. He said he couldn’t say anything more because it was a personnel matter.

“It is very unfortunate this was done. This is a very high achieving school and we are certain that they are continuing to make outstanding progress,” Millican said. “During this year’s (testing) we expect them to do extremely well.”

In 2010, the school scored 881 on its API. A score of 800 is a state goal.

News of the school’s testing irregularities were included in a Los Angeles Times story Sunday that found about three dozens teachers in the state were accused this year of cheating, making mistakes or engaging in other misconduct involving standardized achievement tests.

According to a report Chula Vista submitted to the state, the teacher said she used poor judgment by downloading test passages from the Internet to use for test preparation.

Millican said the school principal sent a letter to parents in late August telling them about the incident.