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REBECCA CATALANELLOThe Zephyrhills High pair are said to be the only ones with direct access to the completed tests.
Two Zephyrhills High School employees are being investigated for possibly tampering with students' FCAT answer sheets.
Superintendent John Long called school assistant principal Mike Macchiarola and literacy specialist Ann Bowlin the prime "suspects" in the case of 15 exams, which testing officials determined were falsified this summer.
Bowlin, who has worked in the district since 1994, declined to comment Friday, saying she'd been advised not to. Macchiarola, who started in Pasco as a substitute teacher in 1997, did not return phone calls. Both had access to the room where the tests were stored after students turned them in on June 22, officials said. "There were only two keys . . . and those two people had them," Long said.
Parts of the school were examined. Administrators soon might have law enforcement check for fingerprints. And school officials are considering offering polygraph tests to those involved.
"I think this is one of the biggest issues we have had," said Chris Dunning, supervisor of employee relations, who is investigating the incident. Intentionally tampering with the state-mandated exam is a misdemeanor punishable by 90 days in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both.
After trekking to Tallahassee on Tuesday to examine the questionable answer sheets, Dunning said he and three other administrators who saw the tests were convinced the answers were altered after students had returned them to the proctor.
Initially, Dunning questioned students to rule out the possibility they had cheated.
Fifteen seniors had to retake the state-required FCAT reading test this month after they learned their results from June 22 were disqualified. Students must pass the reading portion to graduate.
The state Department of Education threw out the students' June 22 scores when testing officials in Texas determined the answer sheets contained multiple, similar erasures that resulted in an unusual spike in scores.
Terry Rhum, director of employee relations for the district, said the administration is considering having answer sheets of 15 questionable tests dusted for fingerprints to see just "how many people touched the darn things."
This week, when Dunning, Rhum, Zephyrhills principal Jim Davis and Pasco district testing supervisor Madeline Barbery viewed the answer sheets at the state Department of Education in Tallahassee, state officials withheld two of the 15 in order to keep them as clean evidence.
Fingerprint dusting would better reveal the extent to which people handled the tests and whether there were multiple fingerprints from one person.
"The person had to have had access and relatively long-term access," Rhum said. "It wasn't done in just a couple, three minutes."
According to Dunning's investigation, Bowlin, the exam proctor, distributed and collected the tests the day students took them. After students turned in the sheets and question booklets, Bowlin loaded them onto a wheeled cart and took them to a room for which only Bowlin and Macchiarola had keys. There, Bowlin unloaded them on shelves and two days later boxed up the tests.
The exams remained in locked storage through the weekend until the following Monday, when a driver picked them up along with all the other tests in the district, Dunning said.
Macchiarola, according to Dunning, was in and out of the testing room, but the assistant principal told Dunning that he never had direct contact with the tests.
The day after students took the reading test, the school gave the math portion of the FCAT. Dunning said his investigation indicates the same procedure was followed, with Bowlin collecting the tests and then placing them in storage alongside the reading tests.
Long and Dunning said Davis, the principal, was not a suspect. Davis did not have a key to the room where the tests were stored, Dunning said.
This is the first time the Pasco County School District has had to investigate FCAT cheating. But incidents of exam tampering have made headlines for years as standardized test results have increasingly been linked to high stakes: student graduation, teacher rewards, school grades and more.
Teachers can lose their teaching credentials if they are discovered cheating.
"If you're an educator, there's not much punishment worse than losing your teaching certificate," said Lynne Webb, president of the United School Employees of Pasco teachers union. Webb said the pressure employees feel as a result of the FCAT is undeniable.
School officials expect to decide next week if a polygraph or fingerprint dusting are necessary or feasible.