(NewsNation) — 55 El Paso High School students may be stuck taking the SAT again after their test papers flew off a UPS truck, NewsNation affiliate KTSM reports.
Cell phone footage from some of the high school students last week show papers flying on a busy street, but little did they know it was their SATs floating in the wind.
The El Paso school district claims the tests were submitted securely but were lost in transit. All but 55 of the SAT exam papers have been recovered.
“El Paso ISD is working closely with the College Board to determine a remedy for the El Paso High School students whose SAT exams were lost in transit after they were securely submitted to UPS. The incident affects students who took the exam on Oct. 27 on campus,” said a statement issued by Liza Rodriguez, a spokesperson for EPISD.
EPISD’s statement went on to say they will provide updates to students and parents when available. Additionally, students with compromised exams can take the ACT on Dec. 10 free of charge, CNN reports.
“Counselors are providing students, interested in taking the ACT, with waivers to retake the exam at no cost. Deadline is Nov. 4; exam is Dec. 10 at El Paso High,” the district’s statement continued.
In a statement shared with CNN, UPS took full responsibility.
“Our employees are working to recover as many tests as possible, and we will work with the school to resolve the situation,” said the company in the statement. “The driver’s actions in this case are not representative of UPS protocols and methods, and we are addressing this with him. Safely meeting our service commitments is UPS’s first priority.”
Yet, despite the remorse of UPS and its vow to work along school instructors helping the affected students set up retests, to some students, the issue is deeper than the inconvenience of retesting.
“We have all information — our identification — on the score: our location where we live, our address, our date of birth. It stinks because our information is out there,” El Paso High School senior, Zyenna Martinez, said, speaking with KTSM.
El Paso High School’s unique dilemma comes ahead of the College Board’s plan to make the SAT fully digital by 2024.