Updated on Jan. 13.

The state school superintendent’s $928,570 “emergency purchase” of a controversial school reading curriculum earlier this week could be canceled because it lacked the approval of North Carolina’s chief information officer.

In a memo Friday, Patti Bowers, chief procurement officer for the state, said North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction “has not provided adequate justification for an emergency purchase.”

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State Superintendent Mark Johnson sent an email message to school districts on Tuesday night saying DPI had executed an emergency deal for the Istation reading program “in order to ensure the continuation of our obligations under the Read to Achieve legislation.”

Johnson and other state education leaders have been sparring legally for months over how to administer Read to Achieve to elementary school students. Since 2013, students have read out loud to their teachers, who used Amplify Education’s mClass program to assess their skills. But in June, Johnson awarded a three-year, $8.3 million Read To Achieve testing contract to a different company, Istation, which tests students on a computer program.

Legal challenges followed. State elementary schools were left without a program to test students after a judge declined Tuesday to lift a DIT stay that blocked Istation from getting the new contract.

‘Strictly for an emergency situation’

Johnson told State Board of Education members that he had to act to give clarity to school districts who are conducting Read To Achieve assessments right now.

“This is strictly for an emergency situation where you have to go make an immediate purchase of services, and if you don’t it will result in the cessation of an important program,” Johnson said.

But Bowers, in her Friday memo, rejected the idea that Johnson needed to take emergency action.

“If every contract signed after business hours constituted an emergency, the term would be rendered meaningless,” Bowers wrote.

Johnson’s Tuesday deadline

The memo said Johnson has until 10 a.m. Tuesday to provide the state Department of Information Technology with “sufficient amended justification” for the emergency purchase. The memo also said Chief Information Officer Eric Boyette could decide to cancel or suspend the purchase.

In a heated exchange with Johnson on Wednesday, board members questioned the amount of the contract and said they had been unable to get a copy from DPI staff.

“That clarifies that the state board didn’t have a role in this emergency procurement,” said Eric Davis, chairman of the state board. The contract is set to run until March 31.

Johnson has questioned DIT’s actions throughout the process calling the hearing officer “incompetent.”

“DPI received DIT’s letter late this afternoon, apparently at the same time the capital press corps did,” Graham Wilson, a spokesman for Johnson, said in a statement Friday. “We are happy to respond to their questions and will do so in a more timely fashion than DIT has exhibited thus far in their review process.”

The memo comes days before a DIT hearing Monday on Amplify’s protest of the Istation contract. Istation filed an emergency motion Monday asking DIT to disqualify itself from the case and to turn the hearing over to a state administrative law judge.

In the motion, Istation calls Bowers’ memo “hostile” toward Johnson and showing “bias” against the superintendent. Istation notes how DIT reports to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, a “political rival” of both the Republican superintendent and Senate leader Phil Berger, the main supporter the Read To Achieve legislation.

“Istation is not involved in any way in this inter-agency dispute; it is simply the winning bidder defending the award it won while working for the benefit of educators and children,” Istation says in the motion. “However, Istation is deeply concerned by these developments and the ability of DPI to render a fair and impartial decision in this matter.”

DIT denied the motion on Monday.