"The atmosphere in that school was like a prison the week before the MSPAP. The adults created that. The students were treated horribly the week before the MSPAP. The kids reacted to that." Kristine Lockwood, former Glenwood teacher

Parent leaders at one of the state's top middle schools, Glenwood Middle in western Howard County, are charging that pupil "sabotage" triggered a sharp drop in the latest Maryland School Performance Assessment Program scores.

A letter released yesterday by the Glenwood Middle School PTSA executive board said that the school's 13.8-point drop was directly related to pupil boycotts of the test last spring - disruptions that followed the firing of popular teacher Kristine Lockwood. The letter pointed to "a portion of the [eighth-grade] class [who] chose to sabotage the MSPAP test in protest ..."

Just before MSPAP tests were administered, the county school board dismissed Lockwood, a nontenured English teacher, sparking several angry demonstrations by pupils and parents. Some parents threatened to have their children boycott the statewide tests, which measure a school's progress.

Glenwood's attendance rate did not drop significantly in the week that MSPAP tests were given last spring. But PTSA President Laura Mettle thinks some pupils de- liberately gave wrong answers, skipped portions or scribbled nonsense.

"We have been told by several [parents and pupils] that that's what they set out to do," Mettle said yesterday.

On the 1999 exam, 69.7 percent of Glenwood's eighth-graders scored at a satisfactory level. Based on that score, the school ranked second in Howard County and seventh in Maryland among middle schools.

No way to know

Scores released this month showed that 55.9 percent of eighth-graders at Glenwood scored at a satisfactory level on the 2000 exams. That was below Howard County's average score of 61.4, and dropped the school's ranking to 10th in the county and 31st in Maryland.

School officials say there is no way to know whether such sabotage occurred because test booklets are sealed and filed by state testing officials. But they agree something unusual happened.

"I can't confirm for you that that happened or that it didn't happen. Now, do I think those scores represent what those kids can do? No," district testing director Leslie Wilson said. "If they have data to say that that's the case, I don't know. But it's definitely uncharacteristic."

School board Chairwoman Jane B. Schuchardt said she also had heard that last year's eighth-graders deliberately "blew the test."

Such protests not rare

"I have no proof, but I do believe that the situation last year had a great effect on the scores," Schuchardt said. "Glenwood was climbing."

Mettle said she believed 10 percent to 20 percent of eighth-graders "appeared to intentionally not do their best on the test." Wilson said out of the 235 eighth-graders eligible to take the tests last year, about 30 children would have had to score poorly to cause such a dramatic dip in scores.

State schools spokesman Neil Greenberger said such protests are not rare.

A principal at a middle school in Damascus blamed that school's drop in scores on 13 pupils who were deliberately kept home by their parents the week of testing, Greenberger said. But he added that Mark Moody, assistant state superintendent for testing, said the state would have noticed an "unusual, widespread pattern of contrived, unusual answers."

Glenwood parent Barry Tevelow, who was at the forefront of protesters on Lockwood's behalf, was surprised at how low the scores were, even though he was one of the parents who - at a school board meeting just before her firing -suggested a MSPAP boycott.

'Kids were pretty swift'

"I had no idea that they were going to do this," Tevelow said. "I had heard rumors; I was eagerly awaiting the results. In my opinion these kids were pretty swift."

But Schuchardt was disappointed in the adults who may have encouraged such behavior. Not only did the drop hurt the school and the county, she said, but it did not change - and would not have changed - the board's decision.

"I think ... one person played her parents and her students," Schuchardt said, referring to Lockwood. "And it's unfortunate."

Lockwood, who now teaches at Beth Tfiloh, a private school in the Pikesville area, said administrators can learn something from the recent scores.

"They can learn the kids are critical thinkers; they can learn that the kids want to be taken into consideration more than they were," she said. "The lesson the kids sent the adults is priceless."

Proud of pupils

Lockwood added, "The atmosphere in that school was like a prison the week before the MSPAP. The adults created that. The students were treated horribly the week before the MSPAP. The kids reacted to that."

She said she was proud of the pupils, whether they took the test legitimately or not.

"I know Ms. Mettle wants to point the blame at us and say, 'You disrupted our test.' They disrupted their own test."

Sun staff writer Jamie Smith Hopkins contributed to this article.