More than 65,000 Prince George's County public school students got a report card reprieve last week because of a problem with the school system's printer.
Schools chief Andre J. Hornsby delayed issuing second semester report cards Friday after discovering that a laser printing system purchased to upgrade report card printing made the documents too faint to read, a spokeswoman said.
The delay affects report cards for 22,746 middle and 42,342 high school students. Elementary school students, whose report cards are processed differently, received their report cards Friday as scheduled, she said.
"We were switching from a dot-matrix printer to a laser, and after printing the first batch of report cards we were not satisfied with the results, and therefore we are reprinting them all," said Lynn McCawley, the spokeswoman. "The way the data was printed was too difficult to read."
McCawley said officials at middle schools and high schools have been told that the report cards probably will not go out until Friday, although there is a chance they could be issued earlier.
The delay angered some parents who said it was an example of the school system's failure to deliver on a basic task.
"This speaks volumes about the unpreparedness and lackadaisical attitude that school officials have for our children," said Bronwyn Chisholm, whose 17-year-old son attends Friendly High School in Fort Washington.
"We moved to Prince George's County from the District, but if we could pick up our house and move it to Montgomery County, it would cost $300,000 more."
Chisholm said her son needed his report card Friday because it was the deadline to submit the application for a summer college preparatory program at Howard University that came with a free trip to California. She said her family moved to their Fort Washington home in August but are ready to move again.
Renita Hughes, mother of a sixth-grader at the Thomas G. Pullen School in Landover, said she was looking forward to getting her daughter's grades.
She said she wanted to see the report card so she could determine whether to seek tutoring for her child.
"The learning and tutorial centers get booked up fast," said Hughes, a Springdale resident and development coordinator for a nonprofit organization. "The superintendent gave teachers a half-day Dec. 23 to get grades out, and now we are told it will be another week," she said.
"They can do better. I thought things were turning around. Now I don't know."
