AUSTIN, Texas – Administrators are trying to determine whether some students in Texas taking an online standardized test lost answers in a computer glitch.
The Texas Education Agency says the vendor, Educational Testing Service, is working to determine what went wrong Tuesday. The TEA is trying to figure out how many districts were affected, amid reported problems in the San Antonio, Austin, Bryan and Arlington areas.
North East, Northside, Edgewood, Harlandale, Alamo Heights, Judson and the San Antonio Independent School District reported problems to KSAT on Wednesday.
"Some of the problems (included) students having a delay in start time because they couldn't log in," SAISD spokeswoman Leslie Price said. "And then those that were able to log in were logged out due to what was said to be inactivity, and when they logged back in, some of the previous work they had done was missing."
Price also said there was an issue with the delivery of the test. She said campuses received incomplete information and got the test late. One campus didn't get exam copies until 6:15 a.m. Tuesday.
"We had error messages popping up on our screen, like that red exclamation mark," said Aubrey Chancellor, NEISD spokeswoman. "We had students trying to submit their answers and an error message popping up. Some of their answers, it was unclear if they were reported or not."
Officials with ETS, in its first year of handling most of STAAR, believe its computer server has saved the answers.
"There is already anxiety built up over the state test and then coupled on top of that, either the failure of technology to come through when you really need it," said Pascual Gonzalez, NISD spokesman. "It was very challenging. It was very frustrating."
Not every student who took the STAAR test did so online.
If fact, TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said as of Wednesday, they were not sure what percentage of students took the test online or what percentage of campuses had problems.
WATCH: TEA investigates STAAR testing computer glitch
"We want (students) to be as relaxed and comfortable as they can to show us what they already know," Ratcliffe said. "And we definitely will do everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen again."
The TEA said Wednesday that students affected by the glitch can resume testing at 7 a.m. Thursday. The TEA said the ETS will restore all student responses that can be recovered.
Students must pass the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness to graduate from high school.
Judson ISD sent the following message to parents and guardians:
"Yesterday, as you may be aware, many of our students took the STAAR test through an online system. Though Judson ISD has administered on line testing for numerous years, this marks the first year the state of Texas has used a new vendor, Education Testing Service (ETS). A number of our students experienced technological difficulty with this new system. We have learned this is an issue with numerous districts across the state.
"Rest assured that our district administrators were in constant contact with both Texas Education Agency (TEA) and ETS regarding the concerns and the impact on our students’ success. TEA is working with districts to rectify the situation and should be communicating resolutions in a timely manner, so that there is no impact on the next round of testing in early May. As information is shared with us, we will keep all of our families informed.
"We would like to commend our students for working through the challenges with diligence and patience."
Alamo Heights ISD sent the following message to parents and guardians:
During today's state on-line testing for STAAR English I End of Course exam, students across the state experienced technical glitches causing them to lose connectivity, to time out, or to have answers lost intermittently during the testing.
Many Alamo Heights students experienced the same problems. All AH students ultimately were able to complete the exam.
The state has reported to districts that all student responses were safely in the system, but they will investigate further to confirm.