High-schooler charged with breach of FCAT security at Marianna

A Marianna High School student is facing a first-degree misdemeanor charge for photographing his state achievement test while it was being administered two weeks ago.

According to Lt. Mike Hodges of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, the student has not been arrested but the charge has been filed with the State Attorney’s Office.

“He is charged with the statute of test security violation,” said Hodges, who’s in charge of the school resource officer program for the sheriff’s office and is himself one of the two SROs at Marianna High.

Hodges said Tuesday that he had recently completed the investigation into the matter. He said that because this is the first time he has dealt with the statute on test security and it was only passed “a couple of years ago,” he sought advice from the State Attorney’s Office.
According to School Superintendent Danny Sims, the boy was given an out-of-school suspension and had his test invalidated. Hodges said the suspension was for the maximum number of nine days.

“It’s a violation of state statute,” said Sims when he was reached for comment about the incident Monday night in Jacksonville, where he was on spring break and attending a Marianna High School baseball game.

The incident involved the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, the math part, according to the superintendent.
Sims said it doesn’t appear that the boy, a sophomore, did anything more than show the pictures on his digital camera to other students the day after the test.

“There was a student that during the test took some pictures of the test,” Sims said. “He didn’t do anything with (the camera) but bring it back to school and he showed it to some of his friends who promptly turned him in for violating FCAT security.

“The teacher didn’t know he had a camera and even the students who sat around this student did not know he had a camera. I think he had taken his test and did that in the time after he had taken the test,” Sims said.

As far as he knows, the superintendent said, the boy did not show the pictures to others before they took the math FCAT and did not post the pictures on his MySpace as has been rumored.

“That is not correct unless someone has found out something we didn’t find,” Sims said. “Some of the students saw them on his camera; he did not print them out or download them.

“Those things were checked as best we can,” he added. “That was not done that we know of, and the young man said he did not do that.”
Hodges said it’s for certain the pictures weren’t posted on the student’s MySpace.

“I seized his home computer and the pictures had never been downloaded,” the officer said. “And we checked his MySpace and there was nothing there dealing with the FCAT.”

Because the student is a minor, he is not being identified. Neither would Sims identify the teacher in whose class the student was.

Sims said he contacted the state Department of Education for guidance in handling the situation. In addition to the suspension and the state charge, he said the student must retake the test as a junior next year.

He said as far as he knows this is the first time for an FCAT security breach here.

“Nothing like this to my knowledge has happened anywhere in Jackson County,” though it has happened elsewhere in Florida, he said.

Hodges said the student could be sent to the county’s Teen Court because this is his first offense.

“There’s a good chance he may get Teen Court,” he said. “That’s an option they have. He would go through their program.”

A typical sentencing, he said, is a mock trial, a tour of the county jail, community service and apologies.

“If he completes that they would do away from the charge,” Hodges said. “If he doesn’t complete it, he would be turned over to Juvenile Court.”