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New Rochelle Board of Education Sends Grade-Fixing Report to NYSED Test Security Unit

Written By: Robert Cox

NEW ROCHELLE, NY — New Rochelle Board of Education President Jeffrey Hastie sent a letter to New York State Education Department Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia on December 12, 2018 in which he does not accurately state the circumstances of the hiring of T&M Protection Resources, LLC, the nature of the investigation by T&M or the role played by the test integrity unit where the report was sent.

In the letter, Hastie attributes the investigation to New Rochelle High School teacher Anthony Stirpe sending a packet of documents to then Superintendent of Schools Dr. Brian Osborne which Hastie claimed identified “improper practices relating to our online credit recovery system, Apex Learning.” Hastie says “the Superintendent immediately initiated an investigation using the services of T&M Protection Resources, LLC.”

In fact, T&M was hired by Bond, Schoeneck & King on behalf of the City School District of New Rochelle on May 23rd. The Journal News story ran on May 23rd but was based on reporting that pre-dated the publication date. Two other allegations were investigated by T&M, both from articles published by Talk of the Sound, one on May 7th and the other May 23rd 

Talk of the Sound was offered the documents sent to Osborne and the Journal News a week before and at that point the documents had already been delivered to Osborne. In fact, school board members were aware of the only sustained allegations investigations in the T&M Report when the May 7th article ran, those involving Shadia Alvarez and the control failures with the Apex Learning service published in Talk of the Sound.

According to the T&M Report, the package of documents “identified five former NRHS students and that they were all dated from the 2015-2016 academic year”.  While the documents “suggested NRHS staff with Apex access may have been improperly adding scores or granting full credit for substandard work by students taking Apex online courses, thereby granting those students unearned credits”, there was no conclusion that this was the case. T&M investigators stated that based on the lack of record retention for student coursework and the lack of procedures at NRHS regarding grade entries, T&M was “unable to ascertain the appropriate grades for students who received 100% scores tor these non-computer-generated activities, such as journals, logs and discussions and thus, or identify issues relating to grade point averages and class standings”.  Further, NRHS administrators told T&M that Apex work was stored electronically on the Apex system and none of them could explain the mechanism by which the Apex-generated documents that Stirpe sent to the School District in May 2018 could have been gathered. Given this, the packet of documents sent by Stirpe to Osborne proved nothing at all about what Hastie describes as “improper practices relating to our online credit recovery system, Apex Learning.”

“We fully plan on cooperating with New York State Education Department’s investigation,” writes Hastie in the letter.

Hastie says that Interim Superintendent Dr. Magda Parvey has been in contact with “Mr. Gratto in your Testing Security Unit “ about “the report and its findings and their intention to do a full investigation.”

Who is Mr. Gratto and what is the Testing Security Unit?

TESTING SECURITY UNIT

The  New York State Education Department’s Test Security Unit (TSU) does not investigate “credit recovery” programs or online platforms such as Apex Learning. The TSU was created in 2012 to “ensure the security and integrity of New York State assessments”.

About TSU

Test Security Incident Report Form

State assessments are standardized state exams such as Common Core, English Language Arts (3rd – 8th Grade), Mathematics (3rd – 8th Grade), Science (4th and 8th Grade), Regents, Regents Competency Test (RCT), NYSESLAT (K – 12th Grade), and NYSAA (3rd – High School). The Test Security Unit “works to deter and remedy testing misconduct by educators and administrators who are involved in the administration and scoring of New York State assessments.”

While TSU does not investigate credit recovery programs, even if they were to do so, the limits of corrective action undertaken by the TSU are little more than potential disciplinary proceedings pursuant to Part 83 (teaching licenses) and/or Education Law §3020-a (administrative licenses). In other words, the TSU might make a recommendation to suspend or revoke a teaching or administrative license. No one will be under oath and no one is going to jail for lying to investigators or for what they may have done.

MR. GRATTO

James Gratto is the Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services for Southern Westchester BOCES. While technically, all public school district employees work under the New York State Education Department. Gratto works for Southern Westchester BOCES District Superintendent Dr. Harold A. Coles, the same person who is running the Superintendent Search for the New Rochelle Board of Education. This is hardly the sort of “hands off” transaction it has been portrayed to be by Hastie and the New Rochelle Board of Education.

TEXT OF ENTIRE LETTER

MaryEllen Elia, Commissioner of Education

New York State Education Department

New York State Education Building

89 Washington Avenue

Albany, NY 12234

December 12, 2018 

Commissioner Elia, 

This past spring, a teacher at our high school alerted our then Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Brian Osborne, about improper practices relating to our online credit recovery system, Apex Learning. With the support of the Board of Education, the Superintendent immediately initiated an investigation using the services of T&M Protection Resources, LLC. The final report was issued on December 3, 2018 and received by the Board at its December 4, 2018 meeting. 

Mr. Gratto in your Testing Security Unit has been in contact with our Interim Superintendent, Dr. Magda Parvey, about the report and its findings and their intention to do a full investigation. We fully plan on cooperating with New York State Education Department’s investigation. By copy, I am including the full report to Mr. Gratto. I am also including our proposed policies and practices for online courses for review by NYSED. Should you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. 

As I stated for our Board and District when accepting the report, “Our educators, administrators and support staff work their hardest to provide the highest quality education to our students in an environment that encourages a love of learning and inquiry. Graduates are -and should be -proud of their New Rochelle High School diplomas. Confidence in grading is the glue that holds it all together.” 

Jeffrey Hastie 

President, Board of Education

cc. Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services 

NYSED Testing Security Unit Integrity Officer for Southern Westchester Southern Westchester BOCES 

17 Berkley Drive 

Rye Brook, NY 10573