I am building a test Class that will get me over the 75% hump that I need to deploy again to Production.  The problem seems to be that I need to access and set variables in my controller class to be able to go through the conditional statements of the methods in the controller class.  Most of these variables are private but a few are public variables.  For both sets of variables tho I continue to get a save error stating, "Variable is not visible".  Am I doing something incorrect here or can I not access these variables.  Some code below will hopefully help illustrate my issue.  Mind you I removed almost everything from the controller class because it is much too large to post here.

TEST CLASS

@isTest
private class searchTest {
   
    static testMethod void searchTest()
    {
        PageReference pageRef = Page.AdvancedSearch;
       
        Test.setCurrentPageReference(pageRef);
       
        searchController mySearchCon = new searchController();
       
        string s = null;
       
        s = mySearchCon.toggleVisibility();
        system.assertEquals(s, null);
       
        mySearchCon.criteriaVal = true;
        Boolean b = mySearchCon.getShowCriteria();
        system.assertEquals(b, true);
       
        List<SelectOption> l = mySearchCon.getUserList();
        system.assert(l.size() > 0);
       
        l = mySearchCon.getBusinessUnitList();
        system.assert(l.size() > 0);
       
        l = mySearchCon.getSearchChoice();
        system.assert(l.size() > 0);
       
        l = mySearchCon.getStateList();
        system.assert(l.size() > 0);
       
        l = mySearchCon.getJOStatusList();
        system.assert(l.size() > 0);
       
        l = mySearchCon.getSubmitStatusList();
        system.assert(l.size() > 0);
    }
   
}

CONTROLLER CLASS

public class searchController
{
    private List<User> users = new List<User>();
    private List<Business_Unit__c> units = new List<Business_Unit__c>();
    private List<Account> accountResults = new List<Account>();
    private List<Contact> contactResults = new List<Contact>();
    private List<Consultant__c> consultantResults = new List<Consultant__c>();
    private List<Job_Order__c> jobOrderResults = new List<Job_Order__c>();
    private List<Submit__c> submitResults = new List<Submit__c>();
    //private List<Location__c> state = new List<Location__c>();
    //private string[] unit = new string[]{};
    private List<String> unit = new List<String>{};
    private string user = null;
    private string searchType = null;
    private integer unitCount = 0;
    private string queryUnit = null;
    private string queryUser = null;
    private string querySearch = null;
    private string querySelect = null;
   
    //Account Search Variables
    private string accountName = null;
    private string accountId = null;
    private string city = null;
    private string state = null;
   
    //Contact Search Variables
    private string contactName = null;
    private string contactId = null;
    private string contactEmail = null;
   
    //Consultant Search Variables
    private string consultantName = null;
    private string consultantId = null;
    private string consultantHomeEmail = null;
    private string consultantWorkEmail = null;
    private string consultantResume = null;
   
    //Job Order Search Variables
    private string jobOrderId = null;
    private string jobOrderPositionTitle = null;
    private string jobOrderDescription = null;
    private string jobOrderStatus = null;
   
    //Submit Search Variables
    private string submitId = null;
    private string submitStatus = null;
   
    //AJAX variables
    boolean criteriaVal = false;
    boolean accountVal = false;
    boolean contactVal = false;
    boolean consultantVal = false;
    boolean jobOrderVal = false;
    boolean submitVal = false;
    boolean interviewVal = false;
    boolean resultsVal = false;
    boolean resultsTableVal = false;

    //Flags
    boolean unitFlag = false;
    boolean unitAllFlag = false;
    boolean userFlag = false;
    boolean userAllFlag = false;
    boolean searchFlag = false;
    boolean unitDisabledFlag = false;
   
    //Error variablea
    boolean noUnitUser = false;
    boolean noResults = false;
    boolean disabledUnit = false;

    public Boolean getShowCriteria()
    {
        return criteriaVal;
    }

}

ERROR
Save error: Variable is not visible: criteriaVal