The AP Testing schedule kicked off last week with an audible bang –before the first day of testing was through, senior Mimi Liu had already been rushed off to the hospital for an emergency removal of her ruptured appendix. After Liu’s appendix disaster, the long days of AP Testing dragged on and it was believed that nothing could top an appendicitis during an exam – that is, until the fourth day. It was during the AP Calculus exam that the multi-purpose room suffered a collapsed ceiling.

Liu’s appendicitis occurred on Monday. Liu had successfully made it through the first portion of her AP Literature exam when the pain in her stomach started to truly bother her. Before that moment she had been paying more attention to the test in front of her than the cramping pain in her left side.

“I didn’t notice it, or thought I didn’t notice it, because I’d been having stomach problems the night before,” Liu said.

Still, despite the stomachache, Liu managed to complete the free response section of the test, at which point she excused herself to the visit the clinic. It was in the clinic that Liu’s severe pain was made obvious by the fact that she was nearly doubled over. Liu’s mother was called, a wheelchair was retrieved, and within an hour Liu was on her way to the hospital to have her ruptured appendix removed. Luckily, the effect of the clinical disaster on her test-taking is not one of Liu’s greatest worries.

“I think I might have done just a smidge better on the free response part if my appendix didn’t rupture, but it doesn’t matter now – I’ll be happy with whatever I get. I don’t want to make too big a deal out of the issue,” Liu said.

The problems that occurred on Thursday during the AP Calculus exam were caused by a bucket left inside the ceiling tiles, collecting water that was leaking from a pipe inside the ceiling. For senior Stephen Baughman this was a particular problem, because he was seated directly beneath the leak and midway into the exam he had to deal with the distracting, constant drip of water hitting his desk. It was not until the students were released for what was expected to be an 11-minute break that the weight of the water-filled bucket caused the ceiling tiles to collapse.

“I went to the bathroom barely five minutes before it happened,” Baughman said. “People kept telling me that the ceiling had collapsed exactly where I had been sitting, on the desk I had just been using. It made me start to think about how ironic it was that I wasn’t sitting there – it’s really pretty lucky. I mean, it is easy to joke about but it really was pretty serious.”

While the students were out of the room on their break, Dr. Wright (the Director of Guidance), construction safety inspectors, and supervisors from the construction company were called down to investigate the situation. It was decided that the area would be cleaned up and testing could be resumed.

“We wanted to make sure that the room was safe and that they could complete the test,” Dr. Wright said.

The testing did proceed after the water was mopped up and the desks nearest the collapsed ceiling were moved, but after a break that lasted roughly half an hour, students had trouble regaining their concentration.

“I found it hard to get focused again,” Baughman said. “After the ceiling collapsed I just took the test less seriously.”

Senior Sandy Beutler, who was seated behind Baughman, was also affected by the collapsed ceiling.

“I can imagine it was pretty shocking for Stephen,” Beutler said. “For me, I was more worried about finishing the free response [than I was about the initial leak]. After the ceiling collapsed my only problem was having to finish the test on a slightly wet answer sheet.”

Prior to the disaster no administrators were aware that there was a bucket in the ceiling.

“When you walk into a room you usually don’t look up at the ceiling,” Dr. Wright said. “I had no knowledge that [the bucket] was up there. If I had known, I would never have had anyone sitting there. The whole thing was very dangerous and we’re very lucky that no one was hurt. After we cleaned up, we simply moved the kids away from the area and repaired the leak. The next day we continued testing in the same room.”