Testing Their Patience: Students Frustrated After Gas Leak Postpones SAT at Moorestown High School

Andrew Rowan

June 2, 2018

Students taking the SAT and the SAT Subject Tests at Moorestown High School on Saturday morning were evacuated after an alleged gas leak, forcing the College Board to reschedule the test date for June 16.

Multiple MFS students told WordsWorth that MHS students testing at the school said there had been similar gas leak evacuations earlier that week. WordsWorth reached out to several MHS students for confirmation, though none have immediately responded.

“We got into our rooms and it was around 8:10 and [the] proctor just said everyone collect your belongings and go out the main door,” said junior Sonia Patel. “We all walked outside and waited without knowing what was happening.”

Junior Jack Beard said his test proctor left the room without telling them to evacuate: “[H]e just got his stuff and left and we were all sitting there like what just happened? Then the head test supervisor came back and told us to … evacuate the building.” Beard said the room was unsupervised for about a minute.

Testing rooms had already collected cell phones from students, but some students grabbed their cell phones as they evacuated, according to multiple students.

Junior Maddie Mininno said the proctors kept telling students that they would be notified of what was happening in 5-10 minutes, but they continually delayed when time was up. According to Patel, there was one firetruck and two police cars.

“I’m extremely frustrated,” said junior Cameron Stirner, “The rescheduled date they gave us doesn’t work for me, so now my summer is all out of whack. What frustrates me more than missing the test, was how [the proctors] handled it . . . I’m wondering why MHS went through with actually having the SAT when they knew they may have had the issue [with a gas leak]. . . I’m also wondering why they had us wait outside for an hour and a half, when they probably [could have told us the test was being moved] much sooner.”

WordsWorth has reached out to the College Board with some of these questions. The College Board responded in a statement: “The safety of students is of the utmost importance. A makeup test will be available for the affected students later this month.”

After about 90 minutes, students were filed into the auditorium, where they were informed that the test date had been moved. After being contacted by WordsWorth, junior Serena Lin provided video of the announcement. In the video, posted below, expletives are audible from many in the room. WordsWorth could not determine the identity of the woman in the video, although multiple students identified her as the testing supervisor.

The testing supervisor thanked the students for their “behavior” and “professionalism.” She told students “if [they] need to do something other than [test on the June 16 date] they should call the College Board directly and work that out with them.” She cited the citation as “unusual.”

Lin noted that many students had bought tickets to Firefly Music Festival, which is the same weekend as the SAT. Firefly tickets are non-refundable. “There’s a few people from our school that have conflicts now. Some people, like me, are fine with waiting until August but others kind of need to take the makeup,” said Lin.

“I felt annoyed because we were outside for a long time and we did not receive any information about what was going on,” said Mininno. Junior Blythe Salamone added that “it is ridiculous because I was prepared for today, but now I still have to meet with tutors and keep practicing which is [more money].”

To make matters worse, the official SAT program account tweeted “Congratulations to everyone who took the SAT today! LET SUMMER BEGIN …”