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14 minute read

May 20, 2025, 2:22 PM

Recently, I was on Threads and found a post about the fallout from an Advanced Placement (AP) exam that was interrupted by a fire alarm at Davis High School in Kaysville, Utah.  According to the linked article, a fire alarm sounded at Davis High School on Monday, May 12, about three and a half hours into a four-hour AP calculus exam, which required that the school be evacuated, which lasted about thirty minutes.  The alarm was determined to be accidental, caused by a stray balloon that interfered with the operation of a beam detector designed to detect smoke using infrared light.  When students returned to the testing room after the emergency was over, they were informed that their exam was invalidated.  Students were then told that they could either submit their exams as they stood when the fire alarm went off, or they could retake the exam on either May 22, which is the same day as the school’s graduation ceremony, or they could retake the test on May 28, after they had all graduated.

First of all, for those who are not familiar, Advanced Placement, commonly known as AP, is a program run by the College Board, which is the same organization that administers the SAT.  High school students take specially-designated AP courses in high school, and the instruction culminates with an AP exam, which is given in May on a date that the College Board determines.  The exam consists of several sections, and then it’s all sent off to the College Board for scoring.  You get your score some time during the summer, typically some time in July.  You get a score between one and five for the AP exam, with five’s being the highest.  This score is then used by colleges to determine whether to award credits for the equivalent courses in their programs.  Because of the third-party scoring, as well as the timing of when the scores come out, there is no way for an AP exam score to be used as part of the grading for the high school’s purposes.  Thus this exam only determines credit for the next level of education, i.e. college.  Then you only find out what your AP scores were really worth once you enroll in a college and they determine how to apply your scores.  In my case, I got a 3 on my AP history exam during my junior year, a 2 on my English literature and composition exam and a 4 on my US government exam during my senior year.  JMU, where I attended college, at the time would award course credit for a score of 4 or above.  So the AP English literature score wasn’t worth a bucket of warm spit, and we knew that as soon as we saw it, but at the same time, we weren’t surprised, because I had struggled in that course, for reasons that I have discussed previously.  We knew that my AP government score would get me course credit, and as it turned out, my 3 for AP history was a moot point, because that course satisfied the same general education requirement that the government class did, and I had gotten credit for that.

All of that is to say that if the make-up dates seem odd, being on the day of graduation and about a week after graduation, that’s because when the test is administered doesn’t matter as far as the high school course is concerned, because it doesn’t affect whatever marks that they’re giving.  Additionally, by the time a senior completes an AP class, in most cases, the college admission offers have already been made, and students already know exactly where they’re going the following fall.  Therefore, as long as the student receives a passing grade in the course, you’re good.  After all, don’t forget that for all intents and purposes, all of your high school grades die as soon as you receive your diploma, because absolutely no one cares about those course grades after you have graduated.

I find the options that the students were given to be the choice between a rock and a hard place.  Those options were to redo the entire exam on a different date, or can run with an incomplete exam, knowing that any material that you were not able to complete because of the situation will most likely be counted against you.  The fact that one of the make-up days falls on the school’s graduation day doesn’t bother me too much, because there is a second make-up day provided, i.e. you have a choice of when to make the test up.  However, the idea that the school would provide a special graduation event just for the students who missed the regular ceremony because of their AP make-up test comes off as highly patronizing.

My thing is this: AP tests are now largely administered online, and thus the systems know exactly which form of the test that each student received, and their progress when testing was interrupted.  I feel like there is no reason to throw out the entire exam on account of a fire alarm that occurred near the end of the test.  At most, the section that the students were working on when the alarm interrupted their work should be thrown out as incomplete, but everything prior to that was administered properly and should be considered untainted.  There is really no reason to throw that material out.  Also, let us not forget that the reason for the test irregularity was through no fault of the students, and that should not be held against them.

That said, as I see it, the options should be as follows:

• Treat those sections of the test that were completed as the entire test, and score the test based on that, acting as though the material that was not attempted was never part of the test.
• Complete only the sections that were not attempted or otherwise completed on a designated make-up day.
• Receive a full refund of the exam fee and simply walk away with no test score.

The bottom line is that the students involved should not be punished for a rogue balloon that set off the fire alarm and interrupted their test.  Of course, offering the solutions like I’ve proposed also requires that the people at the College Board pull their heads out of their collective asses and actually evaluate the situation individually and more reasonably.  But more about them in a moment.

I also look at this through the lens of my own AP testing experience at Stuarts Draft High School.  In the spring of 1999, I had my AP government exam, which occurred first thing in the morning.  Our testing session started just a tad before the school day formally began, and so while students were still milling around in the hallways, we were already getting started.  The guidance counselor had handed out all of the test booklets, and then not long after that, someone came by the room, got her attention, and told her something.  Then she immediately came back around and collected all of the test booklets from us.  Okay, then.  That wasn’t normal, but the guidance counselor wouldn’t tell us what was going on.  Then the take-up bell rang, followed five minutes later by the bell to signal the beginning of first block.  Then the principal, Mr. Schindler, came on the PA system and gave the normal morning announcements.  I was like, okay, not knowing what was going on.  Then about 30 seconds to a minute after the end of the announcements, the fire alarm started sounding.  It was something of a surprise and a relief to hear the fire alarm go off, because it was something of an answer about what was going on.  I would soon learn that the school had received a questionable phone call, where the caller was completely unintelligible, and not even a month after Columbine, the school chose to treat it as a bomb threat (because everything, no matter how ridiculous, was viewed as a bomb threat at the time) and evacuated us.  I couldn’t help but think that it couldn’t have been that big of a threat, because if it was, they would have evacuated the building on the spot, rather than wait twenty minutes to evacuate us.  After all, they waited for everyone to be present inside the building, they did the morning announcements, and only then did they activate the fire alarm system and evacuate everyone.  One could have argued that they knowingly and deliberately let people into a building that had ostensibly received a bomb threat and let us sit for twenty minutes in a building that was allegedly not safe for occupancy before we were evacuated.  We were outside for about twenty minutes, and during that time, one sheriff’s deputy showed up to the school.  I couldn’t imagine that he was able to have done a whole lot, and they certainly couldn’t have checked the entire building out during that time.  I wonder if he simply told school officials that they were nuts for reacting like this, and then they let us all back in.  After we got back into the room and settled back down, the guidance counselor handed the test booklets back out, and we completed the test in its entirety.  When I got my scores back, my AP government score had a notation that said “testing irregularity” next to it.  To this day, I have no idea if that had any effect on how my test was scored, and probably never will.

Now the big difference between my situation and the one in the article is that we had not yet started the test when the incident occurred.  While the test booklets were indeed handed out, that was where it ended before the guidance counselor was notified of the upcoming evacuation and then quickly collected them back.  No one had opened a test booklet at that time.  So once we got back in, we just went about like the evacuation never happened, and completed the test in its entirety.  By comparison, the kids at Davis High School in Utah were most of the way through their exam when the alarm sounded, with no advance warning.  So while that does merit different treatment of the situation vs. what we had, throwing the entire test out still seems unwarranted.

In doing research for this entry, I happened upon a couple of things.  One was an article from C2 Education about testing irregularities, and the other was the College Board’s own page listing its various policies about exam security.  The overarching take from these two pieces was that the College Board takes itself far too seriously, and really doesn’t give a crap about how much it inconveniences anyone, in that we-have-something-that-you-need kind of way, and they know that people will bend over backwards for them because of the services that they offer.  In the article, it lists examples of testing irregularities that could lead to test scores’ being cancelled, most of which are pretty mundane, like improper timing, improper seating (for instance, all students are supposed to face the same way during testing, which caused a California high school’s AP students to have their scores cancelled when the school sat them at round tables for a test administration in 2013), improper proctoring, defective materials or equipment, or if the school just plain failed to follow all of the procedures and protocols.  It also mentions disruptions of test administrations, which seems to cover the test irregularity that we had back in 1999, presumably not distinguishing between disruptions that stemmed from things occurring inside the testing room vs. outside.  The test irregularity that I had in 1999 came from outside, as did the one described in the article.  And as far as test irregularities go, the College Board makes the decision on how to handle them, and there are no appeals.  So if they decide to throw out your score, that’s it – your score is as good as gone.  I get that to an extent.  The College Board’s is a business that is built almost entirely on their reputation as a testing service, and any cracks in that could mean the end of their business.  However, extenuating circumstances, where, in this case, the exam was interrupted through no fault of anyone involved in the testing, need to be viewed with a certain level of compassion.

This is also where the idea of being able to take a refund and just walk away from the whole thing becomes valid, since the options that they gave were kind of a choice between a rock and a hard place.  And for someone who had struggled in the course, and wasn’t expected to get any college credit from the exam, taking a refund and walking might make a lot of sense.  I remember my AP English Literature and Composition class in high school.  I struggled in that class, because I was not able to consume the literature quickly enough and actually retain any of it in order to do well.  So I knew going into the exam that I was not likely to get any college credit for that one.  So if that test had been interrupted and I had been given the options that I proposed earlier, I would probably have taken the refund, because walking away would have been a very reasonable option.

But you know that the College Board would never offer a refund for something like this, because they would probably argue that they still provided the service, and that it wasn’t their fault if an unforeseen event led to the cancellation.

As far as the policies about exam security go, though, this is the point where I realized that the College Board is an organization that takes itself far too seriously, and that they bank really hard on the we-have-something-that-you-need idea as a way of making ridiculous demands.  Some of their policies are reasonable, like taking the exam at the scheduled date and time (AP exams are given on the same day for all students of a given subject regardless of location), not looking at materials until you are instructed to, and not taking test materials out of the testing room.  Sure – that makes sense.  Likewise, the various rule violations that they cite, such as collusion with other test-takers, use of generative AI, use of unauthorized assists during testing, use of an unauthorized electronic device, causing a disruption, etc. also are pretty reasonable.

However, there are a lot of parts of their security policy that I consider somewhat unreasonable, viewing it as an adult who has been out of the education world for more than twenty years.  Under “Discussing Exam Questions”, it has a few things that raise a few eyebrows.  First, this:

If you post to any form of social media during the exam or refer to unreleased exam content at any time after the exam, your score will be canceled, no retest will be permitted, and you may be banned from future testing.

This one is a two-parter.  Posting to social media during the actual test, absolutely, eject the violator from the space and cancel their score.  Afterward, the battle is over, the pressure is off, and the completed materials are on their way to the College Board for scoring.  That is absolutely a reasonable time to discuss the test now that it is in the past.  Note, however, the use of their term “unreleased”.  You will see that again.

They also promise to cancel your score for any of the following disclosures, in any form, as stated on their website:

• Multiple-choice content for any exam (this content is never released and may therefore never be discussed)
• Free-response content from a late-testing exam
• Free-response content from a regularly scheduled exam within 2 days of its administration
• Free-response content that is not released on the College Board website 2 days after the regularly scheduled exam administration

This is where it gets unreasonable.  What I’m seeing is that the College Board is telling students that they are not allowed to discuss the content of their AP exams in perpetuity in the case of multiple-choice questions, for freeform content from a make-up testing session, and for any freeform content that they did not publish on their website after the exam.  I got the sense that their use of “released” isn’t the same as what most of us consider “released” to mean when it comes to content, because it sure sounds to me like they are unilaterally demanding that every test-taker maintain the confidentiality of their testing materials for them, and maintaining the confidentiality of testing materials after the exam has been completed is not students’ responsibility in any way.  Once material in a test has been seen by test-takers, should be considered to have been released, as in, it is now out in the wild, and there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle.  If I remember a particularly bad multiple-choice question from a test and remark about it to someone at lunch or on Facebook the following day (and I have certainly seen some stinker questions on tests), that’s not a reason to cancel my AP test score.  Its not my responsibility to safeguard their material in perpetuity for no additional compensation.  The hell with all of that.  I get the sense that when the College Board uses the term “released”, they really mean “retired from use in tests”, and thus a future testing cohort won’t see it on their own AP exam.  As far as I’m concerned, if the confidentiality of their test material is that important, then all of their test material should be one-time use, i.e. once a question has been used in a test setting, it is never used again.  Yes, that means rewriting the entire exam every year.  But for all that they talk about test security after the fact, it starts to sound really reasonable.  That way, no one has to worry about a score cancellation for discussing a past test, because the content that you tested with will never be used again.  That keeps the responsibility for safeguarding College Board content where it belongs: on the College Board’s side of the equation in its entirety.  In that situation, the security of past test questions doesn’t matter, because they will never be used again in the future.  And let’s not forget that we are talking about children here.  Yeah, we like to put up how grown up and mature these people are, but at the end of the day, being under 18, in the eyes of the law, these people are children.  And as such, they are asking children to help maintain the security of their test materials, forever.  And that is absolutely not their job.

It also reminds me of when I applied to work for Ride On back in 2014, and attended the testing session that they put all of the candidates through.  They did a written test and a more practical test, and the practical test was done via a video projected on a screen, with questions about various situations that would occur on a bus.  The first part of the video was a guy who was either an attorney or an actor playing one, and he lectured the audience about the importance about not talking about the test.  It took just about everything I could muster not to laugh at that, because I didn’t sign any sort of confidentiality agreement about any of the testing that I was doing, and so they could go kick rocks on that.  I want to find a copy of that video, because it was so stupid that it was funny, but that’s another story (but if you know where I could find it, let me know, because I could use a good laugh).  For what it’s worth, I got the job with Ride On, but ultimately turned it down to work for a bigger transit agency that was more closely aligned with my interests.  But despite the big, scary message, which I actually found somewhat insulting, there was really nothing that Ride On could do if someone discussed their tests.  It was just an intimidation tactic, because at that point, I owed them nothing.

That said, I would love to see someone discuss AP content on Facebook or another social media platform that they recall from a test that they took twenty years prior (think, “Remember that stupid question about George Washington on that AP History test that we took back in high school?” or something), and then the College Board finds out and cancels their AP score and then notifies their alma mater about it.  I wonder if the school would revoke their degree because of the now-cancelled AP score, which was the basis for awarding credit for a course in college, because losing those credits would put them beneath the number of credits required for graduation.  Or I wonder if the school would tell the College Board to go pound sand, because after the passage of that much time, the college doesn’t care anymore, and won’t play along with such pettiness decades after the degree was awarded.

A lot of the stuff that I’ve discussed here is why I wonder if the College Board has actually ever listened to itself, and paid attention to its own nonsense.  Some of those rules make sense and are reasonable, but a lot of them really aren’t very reasonable at all, but the College Board puts them out anyway, holding AP scores over students’ heads in order to scare them into compliance.  I suspect that something like this would change if enough people say something about it, particularly in the academic world.  However, I’ve noticed that a lot of educators are good at following and enforcing rules, but not so proficient about questioning rules that don’t make sense.  So I don’t have high hopes of this actually changing.

It’s also why, if I were to do it all again and the options were available to me, I would probably choose dual enrollment over AP.  With AP, everything rides on a single examination, which is operated by a single organization that takes itself far too seriously, and showing a certain level of disdain for its end users.  With dual enrollment, you’re taking a real college course through a real college while you’re in high school, and you get a grade based on that course with your high school and the participating higher education institution.  And as long as you pass, you get credit, and most universities will transfer credits for a C or above.  My high school didn’t offer dual enrollment when I was there, though they began offering some dual enrollments through Blue Ridge Community College the year after I graduated (it figures).  Even as a high school senior, the moment that I learned that dual emrollment was a thing, I understood the difference between the two, and saw how dual enrollment seemed far more reasonable than dealing with the College Board and all of their nonsense.

I also feel like with the use of more dual enrollment, as well as colleges’ going test-optional, that we can largely bypass the College Board and render them moot.  After all, if dual enrollment is a thing with guaranteed credit for a passing grade, and if the SAT is no longer required, the College Board becomes irrelevant, and gets its pretentious little fingers out of the education system.  However, at the end of the day, I’m just glad that I’m out of school and will never have to deal with them again in the future.

Categories: Companies, High school, Ride On, Social media