Paly’s online store, the Viking Shoppe, sells Advanced Placement tests to students looking to take them this May. Refunds for tests will be offered until Wednesday, after which refunds will include a $25 fee.

– Suzanna Ackroyd

The Palo Alto High School administration will offer students refunds for Advanced Placement tests until Wednesday after discovering that some teachers were requiring students to sign up for the tests, according to Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson. 

“Students can ask for a refund of their tests by Wednesday,” Berkson said. “Any refunds after Wednesday will incur a $25 fee because once tests are ordered we are charged a fee for them.”

Berkson looked into the issue after Yancy Hawkins of the fiscal services department at the Palo Alto Unified School District Office happened to read a piece in The Campanile about teachers requiring testing, and called Berkson asking if it was true. 

“Someone at the district office read [the story] and said, ‘Hey, you can’t do that,’ ” Berkson said. “[Hawkins] called me right away to see if that was going on and I said I’d look into it.”