RICHMOND (WSLS 10) - There have been some issues across Virginia with SOL testing over the two weeks after two cyber attacks. Students take the SOL tests on computers and the system was attacked the past two Wednesdays.
The Virginia Department of Education says the first attack was a cyberattack on Pearson, the company that does the testing on May 13. It disrupted testing in several states and shut down all testing for two days.
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Virginia schools successfully tested 103,000 students statewide that day. Only 89 students at South Anna Elementary in Hanover County will have to retest and that was because of a decision made in the building, according to VDOE.
In every other school in the commonwealth, students continued to test. There may have been delays for some students logging back in to the system to complete a test if they had to leave the testing area.
The second attack on May 20 was similar.
On Thursday, May 14 there was also an overloaded server that disrupted testing for about an hour.
Students who had already started tests were able to continue and finish. Examiners were not able log in new students and they couldn't log students in who had logged out in the middle of a test.
Virginia receives 250 free assessments for every hour the system is down.
"The division testing directors and school testing coordinators have done a great job during the past week working with the department to limit the impact of these issues on students," said Charles Pyle, the VDOE spokesman. "These issues tend to be less disruptive for Virginia schools and students because of the department's experience working through them with school divisions, our system for keeping divisions informed with up-to-the-minute advisories on the status of the assessment system, and the technologies we have in place to mitigate the impact of system and local connectivity issues."
There were no issues with the online assessment system on Friday, May 15; Monday, May 18; or Tuesday, May 19.