SALISBURY Md.

All students who took Advanced Placement exams this year at Wicomico High School may have to retake them after the school accidentally recycled every single one.

School administrators told several families Friday that this spring's AP exams had been inadvertently destroyed.

Families were told by phone and a letter Friday that the school has requested The College Board provide a retest opportunity. The College Board is considering that request, according to Faye Wilson, school district spokeswoman.

"This is very unfortunate. We accept full responsibility for this situation and we are trying to set it right," Tom Field, interim superintendent, told The (Salisbury) Daily Times.

The school lost 63 exams taken by 46 students.

The school system will refund students' test costs of $26 to $332, depending on the number of exams taken. If the tests can be given again, the school will pay for those tests and will also provide AP teachers to help students prepare for the exams, Wilson said.

Wilson said that the high school believed that those exam booklets and student response sheets were shipped to The College Board for scoring, but on June 19 it received a call from The College Board stating it had not received them.

School officials have conducted an exhaustive search, concluding that the AP tests were inadvertently recycled rather than shipped, Wilson said.

The school was handling High School Assessments and county algebra benchmark exams at the same time, and it appears the AP tests were accidentally recycled with the algebra assessments, Principal Lorenzo Hughes said.

"I sincerely apologize for these exams being destroyed. Please know every effort has been made to try to locate the exams," Hughes wrote in a letter mailed to parents of students who took AP exams.

Students would be expecting to receive the results of the AP tests in late July or early August. The tests can help students get credit for college courses.