Local school districts respond to TNReady’s online collapse

Bartlett, Arlington and Lakeland educators talked Monday and Tuesday about how the statewide outages in the new online TNReady testing affected their operations.

Testing began Monday at Bartlett City Schools per the district’s plan, and earlier testing sites were successful until more districts came online, which corresponds with what the Commissioner shared.

Superintendent David Stephens said, “Our network performance was not an issue. The problem was the MIST platform was not able to handle the load at the state level.”

BCS posted the following statement on social media: “Bartlett City Schools was notified by the Tennessee Department of Education that the Department has lost confidence in the MIST platform’s ability to perform consistently in its current state. Therefore, the online version of the TNReady assessments will not take place for Part I or Part II this year. Instead, the Tennessee Department of Education is reverting to a paper and pencil test that addresses the same standards as the online test. Please note, no TNReady assessments will be given in our schools until further notice.

“The testing window has been extended and more information will be forwarded once that information is released from the Department. Thank you to our administrators, teachers and staff for your commitment and perseverance to move our students to a 21st century learning environment.”

Arlington had similar circumstances. Alington Community Schools Chief of Staff Jeffery G. Mayo said Tuesday, “Some of our schools were able to successfully continue testing after yesterday morning’s initial technology glitch. Per state directive, we advised our schools to not begin any new testing sessions yesterday afternoon. We now know that the test will be a paper/pencil test and we will await further information from the state department and then plan the remainder of our testing window accordingly.”

The Lakeland School System posted the following notice on its Facebook page: “Due to statewide technical failures of the Tennessee online testing system, the TN Commissioner of Education has announced her decision to suspend online testing and transition all TNReady testing to a paper and pencil system. This means that student testing will not resume until February 22nd at the earliest. Our students and our system were prepared for this year’s online testing, and we appreciate the hard work of our teachers and parents to help get students ready. Once we have received direction from the Department of Education, we will update our testing calendar and procedures to reflect the paper and pencil testing program. Thanks for your continued support and understanding as we work though these issues outside of our control.”