AP TEST CRASH-OUT
On Thursday, May 8th, students at several Agua Fria district high schools experienced a major disruption during the AP World History exam due to a sudden loss of internet connectivity. The outage, which impacted network services at four campuses, was caused by a construction accident that severed a critical fiber conduit.
According to Brandon Gabel, the district’s Director of Information Technology, “Construction crews ended up severing the conduit that connects all of our campuses.” The break occurred at Yuma and Bullard and impacted all sites except for the District Office and Agua Fria High School.
Gabel explained that the damage was extensive: “The fiber vendor realized it was a complex break as the conduit had been damaged in several places in the area.”
The timing could not have been worse, as several hundred students were in the middle of the College Board’s AP World History exam. While the bluebook testing app had pre-downloaded the exam, allowing students who had already begun to continue, the outage “impacted all network services on-site at Canyon View High School, Desert Edge High School, Millennium High School, and then Verrado High School.”
Gabel added, “Students that had already started were able to continue, however, they were unable to start/submit during this outage.”
The district’s response was quick, as a Fiber vendor was contacted within 5 minutes of the outage. Once the district determined the source of the outage, Campus tech teams worked together to utilize hotspots to attempt to provide better internet connectivity for test submissions. The academics department worked with test proctors to ensure that the testing environment/ rules of the test were still being followed.
The outage persisted into the next day. Desert Edge High School and Millennium High School came back online around 4:40 on Thursday,” Gabel reported. “CVHS and VHS were brought back online on Friday around 4:30. IT crews and leadership worked through the night to verify functionality and minimize further delays.
Magnolia Amadeus, a student who was taking the exam when the outage occurred, described the experience as both frustrating and demoralizing. “When the WiFi first crashed, I was both relieved and upset,” she shared. “I was happy I didn’t have to stay until four, but I was also mad that I had to finish the exam later when I wanted it to be over the same day.”
She explained that the crash occurred during the transition between exam sections: ït was toward the end of our 10-minute break… Then, one of the instructors said, ‘Do not continue to the next portion of the test. There’s been a WiFi error. Students were later told they’d have to retake the entire test on May 19th with completely new questions.
”It’s stressful,” she said. “I studied right before the first test, and now I don’t have much free time to do it all over again.” Magnolia also worried that the disruption would hurt her motivation, saying, “It’ll make me just want to finish the test instead of really putting in the effort like I did before.” She also called for the school to invest in better WiFi infrastructure, noting that connectivity issues have been a recurring problem throughout the year.
While the College Board has scheduled a retake for impacted students, the incident has raised broader concerns about the reliability of digital testing environments. As the district reflects on the outage, the need for resilient infrastructure and proactive planning becomes increasingly in an era where technology and education are deeply intertwined.
For now, students like Magnolia are trying to regroup and prepare again under challenging circumstances-hoping that May 19th goes smoothly. Good Luck Testers!!
