Glitch In Grades Reported Puts 'A-F Report Cards' In Question Again

There's been a glitch, and one that's increased the agitation in an already strained relationship.

The Department of Education released its A-F report cards on Wednesday, but it had to quickly remove some of the scores off its website.

Union Public Schools thought it knew what the district grade was yesterday afternoon.

But the Department of Education says it made a mistake, and now the district is forced to continue to wait.

10/6/2013 Related Story: Superintendent: A-F Report Card System Too Flawed To Make Sense

Third-graders at Union's Clark Elementary have been working hard, unaware of the tension that continues to build between Oklahoma schools and the state Department of Education.

"There's so many pieces of a child, it's so complex," principal Theresa Kiger said.

She was named Oklahoma's principal of the year in 2012 and helped guide the school to being named a National Community School of Excellence in 2011.

Still, the state gave Clark a D-minus on the recently released A-F Grading System.

"I do not think it's deserving of what's going on here at Clark Elementary, and I do not think the families at Clark would tell you that a D-minus is deserving," Kiger said.

Look up the grade for your child's school

The scores were released Wednesday and Union Public Schools thought its district had graded out as a B-minus, but now they're not so sure.

The education department's website now lists the score for Union Public Schools as "N/A" or not available.

Same goes for Jenks..."N/A" and Broken Arrow..."N/A."

The individual school grades are still there, but the grade for the districts as a whole is gone.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education sent schools an email late Wednesday saying, "The district grades were not ready to be released today, that was completely my error. I thought we were releasing the district and site grades, and we were just releasing site grades today. Please ignore the district grade that you saw first, and that will be reposted within a few days."

Union's Superintendent says confidence in leadership at the state level is failing fast and the A-F system needs to be replaced.

"I can't speak to the fact of whether it was human error or not," Union Superintendent Dr. Kirt Hartzler said. "I can speak to the fact that I do not put a lot of faith into this grading system that we have.

There's no word on when the district scores will be posted other than "in a few days."