Students and parents frustrated by technical glitches in remote Advancement Placement exams have filed a class-action lawsuit against the College Board, the company that owns the AP program.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, comes during the second week of AP testing.
The college-level exams, which are normally adminstered in person, were offered online this year after the College Board surveyed AP students. "An overwhelming 91 percent reported a desire to take the AP Exam at the end of the course," the testing organization said in a statement.
But the pivot to online testing has come with its own set of challenges, from the digital divide to a platform that reportedly did not accept all students' answers.
Parents and students complained of the technical difficulties on Twitter and Facebook, but the College Board said in a statement that fewer than 1% of test takers were unable to successfully submit responses.
The lawsuit questions that statistic and seeks more than half a billion dollars on behalf of plaintiffs. It also asks the court to order the College Board to accept and score the unsuccessful submissions made by last week's test takers "by time stamp, photo and email."
In a statement, College Board Chief Risk Officer and General Counsel Peter Schwartz called the lawsuit a "PR stunt masquerading as a legal complaint" and characterized it as "wrong factually and baseless legally."
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