Principal Stephanie Phillips apologized to students and families and described immediate and longer-term steps after Pine Crest High School staff discovered ACT answer sheets had been mishandled. "The mishandling of the ACT answer sheets was a significant error, and I feel personally responsible for the stress and the anxiety that those students who are impacted have gone through," Phillips told the Board at its Aug. 5 work session.

Phillips and district staff told the board they had put an immediate test-administration action plan in place. The plan includes making the testing coordinator a certified position, assigning an assistant principal to provide direct oversight, creating separate logistics and testing-process teams, keeping test materials with the coordinator and assistant until pickup, and documenting FedEx shipping labels at collection.

The school is also offering multiple student supports: an ACT preparation class (34 students enrolled as of the presentation), registration assistance for summer/September test dates, and counselor outreach for students pursuing early college admissions. Phillips said 10 students retested in July (five registered at Pine Crest; five sought reimbursement) and that as of the board presentation 92 students had registered for the September administration (83 at Pine Crest; nine requested reimbursement). She cautioned those counts may understate actual participation because not every student requests reimbursement.

District staff said they are working with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) and ACT to ensure affected students can retest and have scores counted for accountability measures. The district will limit accountability inclusion to students who were eligible on the March 2019 data-collection date, and NCDPI will provide the official eligibility list. Phillips said juniors’ scores are “banked” and will be available for school report-card calculations in their senior year; she said NCDPI has confirmed retest scores from the Saturday and fall administrations will count where students meet eligibility.

Dr. Tim Metcalfe and other central-office staff described a cross-district assessment review “fire team” charged with reviewing security, training, logistics and whether to move toward online testing for future administrations. Members named on the team included Tanya Del Conte (manager for testing and accountability), Jennifer Kearney (AP coordinator, Pine Crest), Joseph Patterson (test coordinator, Northmore High School), Chris Monroe (counselor/AP coordinator, Northmore), Nick Capps (Union Pines testing), and Kent Eklund (director of technology, advisory role).

Board members pressed for clarification about timing. District staff said score reports from ACT typically return in a three- to eight-week window but sometimes take longer and that scores are first released to students; school and college reporting timelines differ, so counselors are calling colleges directly to confirm each school’s score-pull dates for early admissions.

NCDPI had warned the district about the 95% participation expectation; district staff said state and ACT have opened additional Saturday administration windows before October to help the district meet participation targets. Phillips said three students had been approved for special testing at Pine Crest and would test on Saturdays at the school. The district also plans a staff survey after administrations to gather lessons learned for continuous improvement.

District staff said ACT has launched an internal investigation, and NCDPI is communicating with ACT, but district officials do not expect to receive full findings from ACT’s internal review. The board asked staff to return with a progress report from the fire team in September (and again in October if the team’s work is not complete).