Questar Assessment, who has been named in about half a dozen posts on this site in 2018 already, makes the news again, it seems. Now Kayleigh Skinner reports:
The Mississippi Department of Education says local school districts are receiving student tests scores later than expected because the testing vendor didn’t submit them on time.
On Friday, executive director of the office of student assessment Walt Drane emailed superintendents, district coordinators and principals and said Questar Assessment Inc. — the testing vendor Mississippi uses to administer state tests — was supposed to provide third grade scores and scores for students who need them before graduation by the department of Education’s close of business, but the vendor “failed to deliver on their promise to provide these data files at the agreed upon time.”
[…]
This is not the first issue with Questar for the department — in January, 663 students in Tupelo and Jefferson County school districts were affected by a data breach involving the company. Those students make up less than one percent of all students who took the assessment, but the Mississippi Department of Education said in a release at the time that an “unauthorized user” viewed student records from students at some of those district middle schools.
Read more on Mississippi Today. It’s not clear whether Questar missing the contractual deadline had anything to do with any previously reported breach, but either way, this type of reputation hit cannot be good for them.