State Education Department

Security Over Regents Examinations

Regents examinations are statewide tests for high school students. High schools are required by the State Education Department to follow certain security-related procedures in their handling of the examination materials (e.g., test booklets and answer keys). To determine whether the schools were complying with these requirements, we visited a representative sample of 235 schools during the January 2007 Regents examination period.

We found that 41 of the 235 schools (17 percent) were not fully complying with the requirements for the storage and unsealing of the examination materials. For example, 16 schools were storing their examination materials in unapproved locations, some of which were clearly not secure (such as a principal’s office), and 11 schools had opened sealed packages of examination materials before the allowed time (usually one or more days before the examinations were scheduled). As a result of these inappropriate actions, the risk of security breaches was increased at these 41 schools. We recommended SED develop and provide security awareness training for the schools. We also recommended SED visit the schools more often during Regents examination periods to determine whether examination materials were adequately secured, as only 27 percent of the schools in our sample had received such visits since 1992.

For a complete copy of Report 2006-S-104 click here.
For a copy of the 90-day response click here.
For a copy of the associated follow-up report click here.