Karen Yi, and Amanda Oglesby

Asbury Park Press

Students will resume taking the PARCC exams on Thursday after technical problems forced school districts across the state to postpone testing and scramble to readjust classroom schedules.

Pearson, the vendor administering the online standardized tests, said it was "truly sorry" for the mass disruption on Wednesday and attributed the problem to a technical glitch.

The malfunction was "totally unacceptable," Education Commissioner David C. Hespe told state lawmakers during an Assembly Budget Committee hearing in Trenton. He put the blame squarely on Pearson.

Shortly before 9 a.m., school districts reported they could not access the online testing system. Several quickly canceled testing for the remainder of the day, shuffling students back to their normal classes.

The outage impacted classrooms throughout New Jersey, where PARCC has been a sore spot for many students and their parents, some of whom view the exams as a waste of classroom time. There was little to counter their argument Wednesday.

Students stared at blank screens; teachers, expecting to monitor testing, were thrust back into teaching lessons; and already-hired substitute teachers were left with nothing to do. Some districts said they would have to extend testing at least one more day.

"In a district like ours when we're already over budget and cash-strapped, those kind of things really hurt our district," said Freehold Borough parent Roxann Siver after the district canceled PARCC testing for the day. "We have to hire substitutes to help out in our schools (for testing), now we have to do that another day."

It's the second year the state has administered the standardized exams in math and language arts known as PARCC, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, which is taken by students in grades 3-11. Last year, many parents railed against PARCC and had their children "opt out" or refuse to take the exams.

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Education Commissioner Hespe told state lawmakers the trouble was unexpected.

"This was not a problem on our end or school districts’ end, this was a problem on Pearson’s end," he said.

While Hespe said PARCC testing had otherwise gone "very smoothly" he vowed to hold Pearson accountable for the technical failure.

He did not say what financial impact the technical problem could have on districts.

Districts are in the third week of a five-week testing period.

Heather Reams, director of communications for PARCC, said the problem was specific to New Jersey. Six other states and the District of Columbia use PARCC tests but did not experience any problems, said Reams. Some states may contract with other vendors to administer the exams.

"This is the first statewide issue that's happened," said Reams.

Employee error

Pearson spokeswoman Laura Howe said the technical problem was "introduced by a Pearson employee" and was not a problem with the server or the student testing system. The company is still conducting an internal review to determine exactly what went wrong.

"Last night, in an effort to optimize performance of the test administration system used in New Jersey, Pearson made some adjustments that were deployed Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. In doing this, Pearson introduced an unexpected problem that restricted access to the administrative system. We are correcting the issue and will work to ensure it does not happen again," Howe said in a statement.

"Every resource at our disposal is being directed toward identifying the cause of the problem and correcting it as soon as possible without creating any additional inconvenience," she said.

READ: Parents: Shrewsbury kids forced to sit and stare

State education officials on Wednesday directed school districts to suspend testing if they were not able to log on to the system by 11:30 a.m. because Pearson needed to work on the system between 1-4 p.m. It's not clear whether any district successfully tested its students.

"We sincerely apologize and we are doing everything possible to get the system back up," state Deputy Education Commissioner Peter Shulman wrote in an email to schools.

READ: School chief was struck by student late for trip

Districts frustrated

By 10 a.m. Wednesday, Marlboro, Long Branch, Deal, Freehold Borough, Freehold Township, Barnegat, West Long Branch, Tuckerton and Freehold Regional schools had all canceled testing for the day.

Rocco Tomazic, Superintendent of Freehold Borough Schools said teachers could not log on to the testing system and could not activate the session for students. He said testing for students in grades 3-5 in math was postponed and students returned to normal classes.

READ: Parents say Shrewsbury kids forced to sit and stare

"Our aggravation is that we've called all these substitute teachers ... now they're just sitting around," he said.

In Freehold Township schools, district officials sent out an email to parents informing them that testing for students in grade 3-5 was also canceled. PARCC testing will have to be extended by one day to April 27.

EDITORIAL: PARCC fairness still in doubt

Some school leaders were clearly frustrated by the malfunction.

Freehold Regional Schools Superintendent Charles Sampson tweeted, "Disrupted school days not conducive to the type of learning we want here at #FRHSD. We are here to teach not to troubleshoot testing issues."

Marlboro parent Bonnie Barr Gabizon said she received a phone call from the district letting her know testing was canceled for the day. Gabizon is opting her students out of the PARCC exams.

"This is one more flaw and it's a major one," she said. "The ones who are really feeling the negative effects and really suffering are the students in the classrooms, the teachers who are trying to teach them and the administrators who are trying to handle all this mess."

Kathleen Edmonds, a parent at Park Avenue Elementary in Freehold Borough, said the outage was really detrimental for children.

"It gives them more time to think about the test that's hanging over their head," she said. "They're kids, they shouldn't really have these kinds of stresses."

Karen Yi: 732-643-4277; kyi@gannettnj.com