By C1 Staff
BOSTON – Probation officers who recently took a promotional exam must now retake the test after the results were mistakenly shredded before they could be graded.
Calling it a “regrettable human error,” the court system’s director of human resources informed 32 test-takers that they would need to retake the essay portion of the exam, reports the Boston Globe.
The papers were inadvertently placed with other testing materials that were to be destroyed for security reasons.
The court is now taking steps to ensure a mistake like this never happens again.
Those who were informed about the mistake were less than pleased to hear they’d need to retake the exam; one anonymous probation officer who wished to remain anonymous said they thought it was a joke when they had first heard what happened, considering how meticulously the exam had been administered.
“There were strict rules about how you should take the test. You had to have a certain number of pencils. If you left the room and walked too far away, you couldn’t go back in. They spent 45 minutes telling us what do with the test booklets,” they said.
A previous test administered in March resulted in more than half the test-takers failing, which prompted an audit by the company who created the test that found no issues with the scoring of the tests. Probation officers weren’t surprised that the company found no issue with its own test, but pointed out that the written explanation of the audit was so poorly written that it was incomprehensible.
Officers who believed they had passed the test and were in positions of acting assistant chief were told they would resume their previous positions with a loss of pay on Aug. 3.
The tests were created to replace a corrupt patronage system of former probation commissioner John J. O’Brien, who was convicted last year of illegally giving jobs to connected candidates regardless of qualifications.
It was later discovered that those who graded the exams were probation managers under O’Brien’s administration and assisted in the implementation of his hiring and promotional policies.