“Testing firm moving to Longmont: Company planning to hire at least 700 scorers in two shifts“


This article originally appeared in the Longmont (CO) News-Call, on Jan. 28. 2006.


For More Info on These Jobs:

Original URL (now broken):

LONGMONT (January 28, 2006) — A New Hampshire-based educational services company will soon be occupying nearly one-third of the building that formerly housed Concepts Direct.

Measured Progress, a nonprofit company that provides standardized tests and training materials for educational institutions, has signed an eight-year lease on 35,000 square feet of the 117,000-square-foot building just east of County Line Road on Colo. Highway 119.

Concepts Direct closed its operation there in late 2004, cutting 350 jobs locally.

According to Dino Anzures, director of scoring services for Measured Progress, the company will hire two shifts of hundreds of scorers each. He said that by the time the company is up and running at its Longmont location in March, it hopes to have hired 400 to 500 workers for the day shift and 300 to 400 for the evening shift.

Given the nature of the business, the work is seasonal, with the busy times being April through July and November and December.

Measured Progress contracts with state departments of education to design the standardized tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Each state has a unique set of standards, and the tests — primarily for third through eighth grades — are designed accordingly.

“Different states are at different levels,“ Anzures said.

After the tests are given and scored, the final step for Measured Progress is to compile detailed reports on the results.

“We’ll be scoring several states at that location,“ Anzures said. Initially, tests from Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts will be scored here, but he added that part of the reason for opening a permanent location in Longmont is so his company can develop a stronger presence in the West.

The Longmont location will join Dover, N.H., and Albany, N.Y., as the permanent locations for Measured Progress.

“We’re partnering with Kelly Services (locally) to recruit folks that have bachelor’s degrees and educational backgrounds to recruit people to score,“ Anzures said.

“Before they can start scoring, they have to go through a training,“ he said, which includes “live scoring“ in a group setting. Training is critical, he said, because the scorers must all be on the same page as to exactly how to score test answers, based on each state’s standards.

“At Longmont, it’s the constructed response; it’s not multiple choice,“ Anzures said.

Quality-control measures include constant internal monitoring of the scorers’ performances.

Anzures said his company needed a facility large enough to handle the numbers of employees, and it also liked Longmont’s central location between the two university cities of Boulder and Fort Collins. Front Range Community College is here, too, and Anzures said college students and instructors often make ideal scorers.

While the Longmont facility will house a minimum number of people during the off-peak times of the year, Anzures said that could change depending on what new business is developed through the company’s Western contacts. He added that much of the full-time hiring will come from talent that first starts with the company as scorers.

John Cody, president and CEO of the Longmont Area Economic Council, said he’s pleased to see a good chunk of the former Concepts building occupied, but he had thought at one point that Measured Progress might have chosen Aurora over Longmont.

“We recruited them pretty hard,“ Cody said. “They found a building in Aurora they liked better, and we thought the deal was dead.“

Aside from Longmont’s central location, Pat Ross, public affairs manager for Measured Progress, said there was another reason the company liked this location.

“Geography is a factor, and we have a growing Western business,“ Ross said. “But in addition to that, we look for a labor force with the amount of educational experience that this work requires, and your area is rich in that. It’s a very capable work force.“

Help wanted:

For information on applying to be a scorer for Measured Progress, send your resume and contact information to ks1656@kellyservices.com. A direct-contact phone number should be available within the next week or so, according to the company.

Tony Kindelspire can be reached at 303-684-5291, or by e-mail at tkindelspire@times-call.com.

For More Info: