Florida’s top educator says the computer issues that forced several districts to delay or suspend standardized tests Monday have been fixed.

Florida this year is switching to a new test known as the Florida Standards Assessment. Most students are taking the test online.

On Monday, districts across the state suspended the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) testing due to technical issues.

School district officials said it appears an online portal was overwhelmed by the number of students trying to log in.

Florida Department of Education Commissioner Pam Stewart sent the following e-mail to superintendents Tuesday morning:

Superintendents,

The department worked with AIR throughout the day and into the evening yesterday to better understand the issues that affected online testing in Florida on Monday. AIR has determined that a software issue caused log-in issues, including delays and error messages for a number of districts. AIR reports that of the 69,177 tests that were started yesterday, 67,745 were successfully completed.

AIR and its hosting provider, Rackspace, have worked to ensure that service is restored to the servers that support the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA). Last night, AIR conducted an additional load test on the hardware that supports FSA and it showed improved performance after the software changes. AIR will continue to monitor server performance throughout the entire FSA testing window.

Districts may begin or resume testing as soon as they desire, and additional guidance will be provided to assessment coordinators shortly. ​

Sincerely,

Pam Stewart