Several Central Texas school districts affected by STAAR glitch

Many students were temporarily kicked off the online version of the state standardized test on Tuesday, the first day of major statewide testing.

A server went down that caused a 20-minute outage in the morning and resulted in students losing access to the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. Educational Testing Service, the company that administers the test, was able to fix the problem and students were given extra time if they needed it, said Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson.

“When (students) logged back in, the work was still there. To our knowledge, no student data or information was lost,” Culbertson said. She added that district officials who had issues were encouraged to contact Educational Testing Service support.

Multiple Central Texas school districts, including Austin, Round Rock, Leander, Hays, San Marcos, Georgetown, Bastrop, Manor, Lake Travis and Eanes reported being affected by the outage.

“There was a minor glitch. The TEA online system temporarily displayed an error message and students were unable to continue testing. Fewer than 900 AISD students were affected,” said Debra Ready, executive director of accountability and assessment with the Austin district.

The Georgetown school district allowed students to go to lunch early while the server was rebooted, said spokeswoman Melinda Brasher.

Dallas area school officials also said they experienced the outage. Multiple teachers and parents on social media said they fear the glitch exacerbated students’ testing anxiety.

State law requires fifth and eighth grade students as well as high school students to pass the STAAR to move on to the next grade or graduate. School officials can also use STAAR scores to make decisions on whether a student must enroll in summer school. The test also determines how the state evaluates campuses and school districts each year.

Fourth and seventh grade writing, fifth and eighth grade math and English I STAAR were administered Tuesday.

Two years ago, the agency fined Educational Testing Service $21 million after a widespread computer glitch that year had erased students’ answers to 14,200 tests. Education commissioner Mike Morath dropped requirements that fifth and eighth grade students had to pass the STAAR in 2016.