Four school employees suspended following allegations of cheating on statewide tests
Floyd County Superintendent Danny Adkins announced Tuesday that he had suspended four employees at Betsy Layne Elementary School with pay following a state investigation of 2017 K-Prep scores.
The Kentucky Department of Education report released May 13 said that “...evidence exists that the staff at Betsy Layne (Elementary) deliberately altered student exams and provided inappropriate assistance to students in order to improve achievement scores.”
Adkins told the Herald-Leader Wednesday morning that the district will no longer employ the following employees at the beginning of the next school year: principal John Kidd; assistant principal and building assessment coordinator Rebecca Ratliff; chief academic officer Tonya Williams; and teacher Jordan Kidd.
Following the release of the report earlier this month, Kentucky Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis said the report showed “cheating on multiple fronts.”
“It was an orchestrated scheme that included permitting students to have additional time, inappropriately reviewing test documents... issues around test security all the way to inappropriately identifying children for special education services,” Lewis said.
The report alleged that John Kidd, Ratliff and some teachers at Betsy Layne changed students’ answers from wrong to right.
“Data analysis showing statistical anomalies is consistent with student responses being changed from wrong to right,” the report said.
In a statement released Tuesday, Adkins said that “what happened in the Floyd County School System was an embarrassment and a terrible wrong.”
Chief Academic Officer Tonya Williams, Principal John Kidd, vice-principal Rebecca Ratliff and teacher Jordan Kidd will all be reported to Kentucky’s Education Professional Standards Board, the report said. That board takes actions against educators’ licenses.
WYMT said that some parents were upset by the decision. The station reported that Tuesday morning, parents “stood chanting near the highway in front of the elementary school with signs.”
WYMT quoted a parent named Stephanie Williams as saying, “These people are good people. They would bend over backward for every single child in that school and they have. What has been done to them is an injustice. It’s a major injustice.”
The report also said former Floyd County Superintendent Henry Webb, now the superintendent in Kenton County, instilled “incredible pressure” to have high test scores, according to the report — Webb’s motto was “Whatever it takes.”
Webb denied any knowledge of cheating while he was superintendent in Floyd County.
“I frequently utilized this motto with the statement, ‘morally and ethically’ and referenced the expectation to always be ethical and warned of disciplinary action if anyone was every caught being dishonest on the state assessment,” Webb said, following the release of the report. “Lastly, staff who have worked closely with me understand my commitment to law, policy, procedure and ethics.”
In his statement, Adkins said he would do everything possible to ensure that the “misconduct” was not repeated. He said he was reorganizing Central Office.
He said the district’s response would result in a system that was morally right and fair.
This story was originally published May 28, 2019 at 8:33 PM.