AUGUSTA, Maine - Teachers in Augusta today hit back at accusations from state officials that they had intentionally helped elementary school students who were taking standardized math tests.
Last month, the principal at Farrington Elementary School resigned after so-called "testing irregularities" led to the math scores of more than 100 students being thrown out.
State education officials claim that charts and posters containing mathematical facts had been purposefully hung on the walls of two classrooms where the standardized tests had been held, as a way of helping the students.
High school teacher Jeff DeJongh, who's also president of the Augusta Education Association, says teachers asked, and were given permission, to move some reference materials into the testing rooms, but for quite innocent reasons.
"The goal was to keep the atmosphere as normal as possible for the students taking the tests, because they wouldn't be taking it in their normal rooms," DeJongh says.
He says there was no intention on the part of teachers to give students an unfair advantage in the tests.