BA, TPS High School Juniors To Spend Tuesday Taking SAT Tests

For the first time in over a week, Broken Arrow and Tulsa Public students were back in class.

District leaders said despite the ongoing teacher walkout, juniors were still required to be in school for SAT testing.

The College Board, which is in charge of the SATs, sets the test date, along with a makeup date, so school districts didn’t have a choice but to test on Tuesday.

In Broken Arrow, students were surprised by three teachers they haven’t seen since the walkout started.

Sarah Parris, Stephanie Smith and Alexa Shahadi stood outside the front doors of the high school and cheered on the hundreds of juniors as they walked in for testing.

"We know this is kind of hard for them to be coming to school without their teachers present," Parrish said.

Smith said, "You miss your kids, definitely. they are why you come to work every day and so it is good to see their bright, happy faces. Sleepy faces today."

The students greeted the English teachers with hugs and wished them luck during the walkout.

All three teachers said it’s tough to know they can’t be in class right now but said it was great to see their students on an important day.

The teachers said it's been hard being away, but that it's a sacrifice they had to make.

Shahadi said, "It's been, yeah, kinda bittersweet. It's like, 'I wish I could be here with you guys,' but, I mean, we are. We are in spirit."

"We know it's important, and I feel like they know it's important, because they've been telling us it's important, and, 'We're proud of you, we're pulling for you,' so we wanted to let them know we're pulling for them today," Parrish said.

The district said it trained some of the 12-month employees to proctor the exam in place of the teachers.

Complete Coverage:  School Shutdown

SAT testing also happened at Tulsa Public Schools.

The district trained administrators and support staff to proctor the exams there as well.