St. Pete School Cleared Of FCAT Cheating

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The state Department of Education has concluded that a St. Petersburg magnet school did not violate protocol even the results of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test given to students were flagged as statistically improbable.

Last year 30 fourth graders at Bay Point Elementary School gave the same wrong answers on the same multiple-choice math questions, prompting an investigation by the Pinellas County school district.

The Tampa Bay Times reports superintendent Mike Grego sent a letter to state officials asking them to release the school’s grade, which had been delayed pending the results of the internal review.

In a letter to parents on Wednesday, school officials wrote that the state “fully endorses all components of our testing protocol.”

The school received a “C” for the 2013-2014 academic year.