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CHICAGO - Chicago Public Schools’ high school admissions test has been rescheduled for late October and early November after technical difficulties with the testing platform forced delays earlier this month.
The exam is an opportunity for students to secure a seat in one of the school system’s elite selective enrollment high schools. All CPS eighth graders were set to take the test last week, but most who started couldn’t finish because a testing platform operated by a private vendor crashed.
CPS spokeswoman Samantha Hart said the district has worked with that private vendor, Riverside Assessments LLC, to review the problems and fix them. The company has "assured us that testing can continue," she said.
"We recognize that students spend time preparing for this test and it was stressful when the test had to be paused amid the technical issues and we sincerely apologize for the disruption in this test administration," Hart said in a statement.
All CPS eighth graders can take the test Tuesday or Wednesday in English. The exam will be available in five other languages Nov. 1. Kids who were able to finish the test last week can choose to opt out of taking it again and keep their score.
Students who don’t attend CPS for eighth grade but are looking to attend a selective enrollment school will have several options to reschedule on Oct. 28, Oct. 29 or Nov. 5. Families will need to reregister for a time by Monday. Those kids’ exams were canceled last weekend because the technical problems had not yet been fixed.
CPS officials said they don’t expect the delayed testing schedule to push back the Nov. 9 high school application deadline.