Parents threaten to sue Lee County School District over testing changes

LEE COUNTY, Fla.- Parents are furious at the Lee County School Board’s decision to count three End of Course (EOC) exams as part of students’ final grades.

After pressure from the state, the board voted 3-2 Tuesday that the exam scores would count.

Hundreds of kids’ final grades will be affected. At least one parent told WINK News she’s considering filing a class action lawsuit against the district.

“I’m not a lawyer, but they were told one thing and now the rules have changed after the fact. That’s usually a good cause for a lawsuit,” said Bob Schaeffer with the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

Schaeffer says it’s not fair that the school board voted to count the exams after telling students and parents in April that they wouldn’t.

“It’s a very tough situation for kids who thought they could blow off the tests and they’re now told that it’ll count for 30% of their grade.”

In the student code of conduct handbook it states students have the right “to know in advance how grades in a class will be determined.”

School board member Steve Teuber voted against counting the exams, but says the state failed to provide the district with information in a timely manner about when the test scores would be available, which is why they initially decided not to count them.

The Department of Education sent a letter to district superintendents in May stating that the three exams must be counted, and that scores would be released in June.

In another letter sent to the district Tuesday, the state said if the district didn’t count the exams it would be a violation of Florida law.

Teuber says the board’s decision helped avoid a lawsuit against the state.

“To avoid any complications in dealing with the state in a legal aspect… is better for the taxpayers because it’s not involving taxpayer dollars,” Teuber told WINK News.

If parents follow through, the district could end up in court anyway.

The school district says around 900 students’ grades will be negatively impacted by the exams, but none of them will fail as a result. The school district says no student scored lower than a “C.”