Students whose AP exams were lost in May have just 3 weeks to study for a retake. Why?

Royal Palm Beach High School students whose completed Advanced Placement exams were lost in May learned on Tuesday that they have just three weeks to study before retaking their exams.

Just six of the 27 affected students who took AP exams in calculus, biology and Spanish have opted to take their exams again and try to salvage their college credit, the School District of Palm Beach County confirmed this week. The makeup exam is scheduled for Oct. 19.

High school student Laurance Singh is worried about that timeline.

"Less than a month's notice to take a test is nowhere near enough (time)," said Singh, a junior at Royal Palm Beach High now preparing for his second go at the AP Calculus exam.

From Sept. 8: Some Palm Beach County students' 2023 AP exams were lost before grading. What happens now?

The original exam booklets were lost on their way to be graded by the College Board. The school district said its staff followed the normal process for turning in AP exams, and that they mailed the booklets to the organization on time.

District officials also said they confirmed that College Board received the box of tests using package tracking information. The College Board has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Students immediately noticed something was wrong over the summer when some of their AP exam scores were missing from the College Board's portal. On Aug. 16, Royal Palm Beach High principal Michelle Fleming emailed the students confirming their fears: Their exams had been lost.

Of the 27 lost AP exams, 13 were calculus, 12 were Spanish and two were biology, the school district said.

'Honestly it was horrible:' Students stuck without math classes in college, facing retakes after lost AP exam tests

Singh said he spent nearly every weekend in March and April studying for his AP Calculus exam. He agonized over which free response questions would end up on the test and prepared for the portions that would prohibit the use of calculators.

Adonté Jakusik, a senior in the same class, took four practice tests for the calculus exam. It was the class he'd done the most homework in and the exam he'd studied for the most. He was confident he'd pass the test and be able to take Calculus II as a freshman at Florida Atlantic University this fall.

Then, both students were thrown into limbo.

"I was just shocked. Honestly it was horrible," Singh said of reading the email from his principal about the missing exams. He texted other members of his class to see how they were handling the news. Shock, disbelief and confusion seemed to be the common thread among the tight-knit classmates.

Tears, too.

Jakusik was stuck unable to take any math class this fall after he couldn't prove he passed the calculus exam. The flub has set him back by at least a semester as an electrical engineering student.

And Singh, now in a full slate of new classes, will need to spend extra hours relearning calculus that he thought he could set aside.

"Over the summer I did not touch (calculus). I knew that my math class this year would have nothing to do with calc, so I didn’t look at it," he said. "I’ve really forgotten it. I can’t even say I remember some parts of it."

Students and parents say they are confused about how the exam books were lost, but they were also immensely frustrated with their school's response. The students describe the school district's and College Board's responses as cold and unapologetic.

How will AP Calculus students at Royal Palm Beach High make up their lost exam?

The students whose exams were lost were given two choices by their principal and the College Board: Take the test again or cancel their chance for college credit.

Both Singh and Jakusik opted to take the exam again, and both say they need to study extensively if they hope to pass. The school announced the retake date on Tuesday.

Jaskusik hopes he can pass the retake and get his results before registration opens for the spring semester. Then he can take Calculus II.

Other engineering students like Jakusik took Calculus II this semester after showing proof they passed Calculus I as high school seniors. He found out about his missing AP exam just three days before classes started at FAU, and he was unable to change his schedule on such short notice.

"It was just so frustrating that I might have lost that year of work," he said. "As an engineering student, that was the most important exam: the calculus exam."

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Singh said he knew immediately that he'd retake the exam, because choosing not to would feel like throwing away an entire year of work.

He said the retake date should have been set before students decided whether they were would take the test again. Singh said he plans to attend tutoring sessions with his calculus teacher and take practice exams to prepare.

School district and College Board officials haven't been able to figure out how the exams were lost.

The district said on Sept. 8 that proctors at Royal Palm High followed the "standard procedure" for shipping completed exam booklets to the College Board.

The College Board, the nonprofit organization that runs the AP program and the exams released a statement two weeks later to a TV news station that said, "We are deeply sorry that AP Exams taken by students at Royal Palm Beach High School were lost this year and didn’t make it to the AP Program for scoring.

"The AP Program, working closely with the school, pursued every avenue to resolve the issue. But after an extensive search by the school and UPS, the missing exams have not been located," the statement read. "It’s painful any time an incident like this disrupts students’ plans, and we’re genuinely sorry for the stress and inconvenience this has caused."

The College Board declined to answer additional questions.

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What are AP exams?

AP classes are college-level courses provided in high schools.

If students take the class and pass the AP exam, they can earn college credit and move on to more advanced classes in college.

The AP Calculus exam is split into a multiple choice section with 45 questions and a free response section with six questions that include "types of functions, function representations and a roughly equal mix of procedural and conceptual tasks," the College Board's website says.

The exams are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest score. To "pass," a student must score a 3 or higher, but colleges can give extra credit for higher scores based on the campus and degree program.

Students taking an AP exam typically take the paper exams in one sitting — all students who take an AP class take the exam at the same time. The exams are proctored over the two-week period in May before graduation in Palm Beach County.

Teachers are not allowed to proctor their own class' exams.

Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work, subscribe today!

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Royal Palm Beach students whose AP exams were lost have 3 weeks to study