Gateway acts on cheating charge

Students must retake test

Theater, up close, personal

The story of Kendall: Hopkinsville couple adopts baby from China

Gateway acts on cheating charge
Nursing students must retake test

It's a pencil-and-paper test that takes about two hours, and Gateway Community and Technical College students who want to become licensed practical nurses must pass it.

For students, the test marks the end of a year and a half of study. It's the final step before their big licensure exam.

And at Gateway this semester, all 28 LPN students will be forced to take it again.

College officials have thrown out last month's unusually high test scores after two students complained that others may have had the answers in advance.

Gateway spokeswoman Mae Keszei said the college hasn't been able to determine how students might have received early information about the National League for Nursing exit exam or who, exactly, may be involved.

As a result, no one's being disciplined - but all LPN students looking to graduate this winter will have to take the test again.

"It's definitely not something we would have liked to do," said Terry Mayo, Gateway's nursing program coordinator.

But "we do not want to jeopardize our reputation."

Students took the tests, which measure whether they're ready for the license exam, Nov. 1.

The National League for Nursing returned their results Nov. 15. Four days later, two "top-notch" students told instructors that some students had gotten answers to the test before taking it, Keszei said.

Faculty members and administrators reviewed the scores.

In one area of the test, they discovered that several students posted perfect scores, compared to national averages of about 70 percent.

"They found out that what they had suspected was true: the norms (at Gateway) were out of whack," Keszei said.

Getting a copy of the test isn't easy, said National League of Nursing spokeswoman Karen Klestzick, nor is cheating on it.

"We have very, very, very strict security rules here," Klestzick said. The New York-based organization responsible for the tests doesn't sell anything over the Internet, she said. It checks to make sure test buyers are approved by their state's nursing board. When it heard Gateway might have had a problem, it froze the college's account.

Unable to identify who might have been involved, officials decided to simply have all 28 students take a similar test, Keszei said.

They'll administer the test Thursday, and students who fail will have one chance to retake it, which is standard, Mayo said. If they pass, students will have a year to take the licensing exam that will allow them to become practicing nurses.

"Some students are very upset about having to retake it," Keszei said, but she added that the college's reputation isn't the only thing at stake.

The students need to be "prepared for the time they're out in the community taking care of patients," she said. "Their lives depend on knowledge (the LPNs) have."

Students must retake test

All 28 nursing students who are finishing up their final semester at Gateway Community and Technical College will have to retake a test required for graduation because of concerns that some may have been tipped off about the test's contents.

Some of the students in the practical nursing class came forward to nursing coordinator Terry Mayo, who investigated, said a school spokeswoman.

That investigation showed that some students had scored higher on the test than might have been expected based on their school work.

School officials, in consultation with the National League for Nursing, which designed the test, decided on the retest, College President Ed Hughes said Thursday.

The test, while it serves as a kind of practice test for the students preparing for their licensure test, is significant to the school itself because it serves as a statement that Gateway believes its students are equipped to graduate and to serve in their profession.

"It's in their best interest that in order to be thoroughly prepared for the licensure exam, they need to get a good and honest assessment of where they are," Hughes said.

There's another, more important issue involved, Hughes said, and that's the academic integrity of the learning process.

"The core of any academic institution is the integrity of what goes on in the classroom," he said.

The students are in the college's one-year program to become licensed practical nurses.

The Messenger
December 8, 2004

Theater, up close, personal

Schoolchildren grew into peach trees Tuesday during the Stage One production of “Beauty and the Beast.”

They also pretended to be fireflies lighting Beauty’s way to the Beast’s palace. Later, at Beauty’s request, they made faces to cheer her up.

“It’s a personal connection for them,” said J. Daniel Herring, artistic director of Louisville-based Stage One. “They feel involved in having this piece of art happen. That stimulates their imagination and their ideas about what it takes to make a play.”

“Beauty and the Beast,” a participation play for children in preschool through third grade, took the stage at Glema Mahr Center for the Arts as part of the School Days Matinees series. For the show, the children sat on the stage right next to the set and were encouraged to take part.

Performances are also scheduled today.

“We offer School Days to bring the opportunity of arts into education,” said Glema Center Executive Director Brad Downall. “The shows that we select, we try to give a good balance of subjects that are covered in core content.

“What we try to do is meet a need that is not met at the school level,” he said. “We bring in big companies with big sets, high production values that they can’t get at their gymnasium.”

Twenty-three School Days performances will be offered this academic year. Usually, more than 12,000 children see the matinees each year.

After about third grade, students outgrow the participation plays and instead want to sit in the audience like adults.

Other School Days performances this year have included “Where the Red Fern Grows,” aimed at fourth- through 10th-graders, and “Charlotte’s Web,” for children in kindergarten through fourth grade. Next semester’s schedule includes a lecture/demonstration by North Carolina Dance Theatre and performances of Children’s Swan Lake.

What students learn by watching the dance performances often carries over into classroom lessons, said Nancy Ratliff, music specialist at Jesse Stuart Elementary School.

“When kids have gone to ‘The Nutcracker’ out there, we talk about ballet and we watch the video of it, so I can show them the special effects,” she said. “We talk about ballet, how it tells a story with dance and music and there’s no speech, no words to tell it.”

Live performances also help students remember the meaning of arts terminology they learn in class, Ratliff said.

“It’s the only way some of our children get to experience a live performance,” she said. “It’s very important. If they don’t get to see a live orchestra, as far as music, it makes such a big difference in what they remember.”

The center tries to schedule at least two or three School Days dance performances each year, Downall said.

“Occasionally, we will do a School Days in music,” he said. “We found years ago that those were not as well attended because a lot of schools get opportunity for music groups in the schools.”

Stage One and Lexington Children’s Theatre offer curriculum guides for their shows to help teachers relate the production to required core content.

Other education-related programming offered by the Glema Center includes professional development workshops for teachers, arts workshops to prepare students for Commonwealth Accountability Testing System exams, the Summer Arts Academy, and artists in residency in the schools.

“We would like to do more extended residencies, to take an artist to a school for a week at a time,” Downall said. “Those experiences are wonderful for all involved. When (gospel group) D’Vine was here, they just went into a school one morning. It was amazing what kind of impact they had in just a single morning.”

Weeklong residencies aren’t affordable now, he said, but they should be as the size of the arts endowment increases. One goal of Madisonville Community College’s current fund-raising campaign is to raise money for that endowment.

There’s no substitute for students seeing live performances or working with professional performers, Herring said.

“I think part of the responsibility of arts education is kids have to see arts,” he said. “They can do arts in their school and create art, but without that comparison, they never see how it’s put into practice by professionals. Otherwise, their arts education in the schools would be incomplete.”

Kentucky New Era
December 6, 2004

The story of Kendall: Hopkinsville couple adopts baby from China

HOPKINSVILLE -- Letting out a gut giggle, the 11-month-old told her new dad she was happy.

"I can't stop looking at her," said Jason Warren, who has only been able to hold his daughter in his arms for about a month.

After three years of trying to conceive a child, Warren and his wife, Paige, couldn't deal with the heartbreak. They were drained emotionally as they experienced problem after problem.

Less than a year after the journey to adopt a child from China began, the Warrens are looking forward to the holidays like never before.

Returning from their trip on Nov. 10, the Warrens were able to spend Thanksgiving with their daughter, Kendall Wen Nuan Warren, and can't wait for Christmas and then her birthday on Dec. 28.

"I don't know what we did before we got her," said Jason, who now can't wait to get home every day from his job as advancement officer for Hopkinsville Community College.

"It's amazing what a child will add to your life," he said.

A two-week emotional journey to pick up their daughter allowed them an opportunity to experience not only China's culture, but also to see the crib where Kendall had slept in the Social Welfare Institute and the crowded, open pharmacy where her mother had left her.

China has a strict one-child policy, and male babies are more highly valued in the culture. As a result, China's orphanages are crowded. A push to get the children adopted has made the process speedier than in the past.

"We're always going to be mindful and hold her birth mother in high regard," Jason said. The mother left the girl at the pharmacy in Yangjiang City, Guangdong.

"There were penalties if she were caught, but I think the birth mother had her best interests in mind. We will always tell Kendall how much courage her birth mother had to ensure that she would be found and taken care of."

At the time they considered adoption, international adoptions appealed to them more emotionally than did domestic ones, because of a shorter wait and less concerns about future problems. Through the Families Through International Adoptions agency in Evansville, Ind., they chose China because of the great need in that country and a ready-made group of support -- Families with Children from China -- in their Madisonville hometown.

As the Warrens sit together at home, they watch an energetic Kendall sing and giggle and continue watching even as her eyes begin to drift shut. They don't want to miss a moment.

"I just think parenthood is amazing. It makes you think about something besides yourself," Jason said. "It's just fun."

They've gotten over the initial hump of being new parents, who jump at the slightest noise, and are beginning to master diaper changes, feedings, packing for day trips, and finding time to eat and sleep themselves between caring for Kendall's needs.

"We're both going to be better people through the process," Jason said. "We both feel like adoption is an amazing thing. There's an emotional side. There's comfort in knowing you're helping a child who doesn't even know who or where her parents are."

Paige, a dentist, added that adoption has been the opportunity of a lifetime and even more rewarding than she ever thought it would be.

"We will certainly consider going through the process again in time," Paige said.

Offering advice to others considering international adoptions, the Warrens said to do paperwork in small increments, go with the flow when traveling, be willing to make adjustments along the way, be patient, keep your spirits up, and keep in mind the end goal. They added that the support of family and friends really helps.