Tuesday, July 17, 2001 | 11:11 a.m.
Clark County School District officials are investigating possible cheating on the Nevada High School Proficiency Exam at Virgin Valley High School in Mesquite.
According to a school district memo distributed Friday, 13 students are being questioned in connection with what officials called "unusually high scores" recorded June 19 on the exam's math portion.
The memo, sent to School Board members, says the students "received help" during the test. Neither school officials nor the memo spelled out whether staff members were involved.
"How many received help and who helped them is still under investigation," the memo says.
The group of students posted an unusually high pass rate, school district spokeswoman Mary Stanley-Larsen said Monday.
The district's testing division noticed the discrepancy at Virgin Valley High School during a review of exam scores and reported it to the state. State officials could not be reached for comment Monday or this morning.
Virgin Valley's new principal, Delos Perkins, reached this morning while moving into his office, said he has heard about the incident but knows no details, other than the district is investigating.
The students' scores have been invalidated, and they will have to retake the test, either later this month or in the fall, Stanley-Larsen said.
"We look very closely at the data, and we do follow up," she said. "The district does not tolerate any kind of cheating."
Only 15 percent of all students in the district who took the test June 19 passed the math portion of the exam, she said. At Virgin Valley, 11 out of 13 students, or 85 percent, passed.
Stanley-Larsen said the district's overall pass rate that day was low, because not many students took the exam and the group consisted mostly of students who had taken it before but failed.
The Nevada Department of Education released a statewide preliminary report Thursday estimating the pass/fail percentages of all students who have taken the test since October 2000. That report showed that 92.9 percent, or 18,602 students, passed the math portion of the exam, while 97.5 percent, or 18,527 students, passed the reading.
Nevada juniors and seniors have several chances to take the three-part proficiency exam in math, reading and writing. Students must pass all portions in order to earn a high school diploma.
Following allegations of cheating on the TerraNova exam at an elementary school a year ago, the Legislative Committee on Education began looking at ways to tighten test security. The TerraNova exam is used by the Nevada Department of Education to rate school performance.
Allegations of cheating on the Nevada High School Proficiency Exam, which included staff members helping students, also were raised last year.
The allegations came under review by the 2001 Legislature, which passed into law new test security regulations.
The law requires each school district to design a plan for test security and to disclose information regarding irregularities in testing administration or testing security. It also prohibits retaliatory action against school employees who report cheating.
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