Posted on 02/26/2008 7:42:42 AM PST by txcaprockgal
CHAPEL HILL - Chapel Hill High School officials busted a cheating ring this month in which students used a master key to enter teachers' offices at night and, in at least one case, used a camera phone to copy exam answers.
Officials learned of the stolen key Feb. 15 while investigating students for having the answers to a mid-term, Principal Jackie Ellis said in an e-mail message Monday. The key opened most of the school's doors, she said.
The cheating apparently went on for several years, with the key being passed from one year's graduates to the next and with an ever larger circle of students keeping the secret, Ellis told parents in another e-mail last week. "Evidently a large number of students were aware that this was happening and remained silent," she wrote.
Bill Melega, a history teacher, said he heard as many as 30 students were involved. He said the mid-term exam was for an advanced placement government and politics class. He said those implicated are good students and that some of his seniors are now suspended.
"It was pretty shocking, to tell you the truth," Melega said. "I feel pretty close to these seniors. I've taught some of them in three classes."
Student body president Ellie Jesse, 18, said the cheating has upset students and teachers at the school.
"There's a lot of anger right now, especially the senior class," she said. "The faculty feel so betrayed."
Cheaters may have gained an edge in class rankings that help decide college admissions, students said.
"Not only is it not morally or ethically right, it affects everyone else," said Kira Borman, 16, student body vice president. "How you stand with the other kids affects getting into schools. It stops you from maybe getting into the college of your choice."
Chapel Hill High can be a pressure cooker, students said.
"It's ridiculously competitive," said Borman, a junior. "I think [this] shows the people at the top might not just be the smartest people or the best people."
Jesse said 100 or more students could be affected by changes in class ranking.
"It definitely rumored around," she said. "Once they got in trouble there was a lot of finger pointing. I think that's when the whole chain got started, how everyone got caught."
In her e-mail last week, Ellis said she had encouraged teachers to talk with students. "Perhaps if we [teachers/administration] had heard about this sooner, fewer students would have been involved in it and fewer students, teachers, and parents would have been hurt in this whole unfortunate ordeal," Ellis wrote.
Cheating is more widespread than many realize. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching reported last year that two-thirds of high school students cheat on tests, and 90 percent cheat on homework.
A national survey by Rutgers' Management Education Center of 4,500 high school students found that 75 percent of them engage in serious cheating.
Ellis said that Chapel Hill High's security officers and administrators continue to investigate the case.
And all exterior doors are being re-keyed.
(Staff writer Jesse James DeConto contributed to this story.)
cheryl.sadgrove@newsobserver.com or (919) 932-2005 Staff writer Jesse James DeConto contributed to this story.
In a different article in the Durham paper on Saturday, the principal was quoted as saying these were very bright kids who made bad choices. !
Chapel Hill is one of those places where if your kid isn't in AP classes, they're looked down upon. High grades are the ultimate status symbol.
Earlier this year my daughter, a senior, lamented to me that she studied for her English test and got an 88, while the guy sitting to her left, who never seems to even read the book or do his homework, got a 100. Turns out he's one of the cheaters, and was suspended last week.
They learned their lessons well..................
So tell us, when one of these kids tells the man at the coffee shop that they're an AP student how much of a discount do they receive on their purchase?
Sounds like what happen the Military Academy in the 1950’s. Damn near destroyed Army Football.
Very wrong but funny. I would not have immediately busted the ring. I would have given them access to a fake final first:’)
"I like the way you think!" - Sam Kinison, in "Back To School"
BTW, txcaprockgal, how did you wind up in Chapel Hill? I've spent some time rambling around the Texas caprock area myself - that's quite a change!
The DNC is requesting all the alleged cheaters to send their resumes in for job positions in the upcoming presidential election. Their skills are needed.
It determines where they end up getting accepted to college. The state schools here are harder to get into than you’d think, especially UNC Chapel Hill. Class rank means a lot to their admissions dept. A lot of these kids got into UNC and the odds are they wouldn’t have, without their “enhanced” grades.
It determines scholarship $$$ too.
Really it’s a big rat race, and the parents are running right along with it.
This is a very liberal Democrat area, too. I think that’s why they’re getting their wrists slapped.
I personally think any individual who took a stolen key, entered a classroom after school hours and rifled through a teacher’s desk did more than just “make a bad choice”.
In my experience, it has been the stupidity of students making 100% that does them in. The INSTANT anyone who shouldn't make 100% makes it anyway, I KNOW something is foul. That's when I go into action to lay traps and change the exams. No way does this go on for years. The smart students have always known how to strategically MISS a few questions.
When my son got accepted into Georgia Tech it was his near-perfect SAT scores that did the trick. Are you saying that UNC would rather have some silly local school ranking than a nationally recognized standard as their deal breaker?
Really it’s a big rat race, and the parents are running right along with it.
All the cheating in the world can't buy you anything more than admission unless you happen to have the keys to UNC also. Colleges have notoriously high failure rates for freshmen.
“The smart students have always known how to strategically MISS a few questions.”
TRUE!!!
The master key to the faculty’s offices are known as: “THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE”
They did a survey of the 450 students at the school and the results were that students opposed to cheating out voted those in favor of it by a significant margin. I believe the results were 750 against cheating and 524 for cheating with 1597 with no opinion.
Depends on what color you are. I'm sorry, I mean it depends on "what your life story is." If you have a black life story, then high SAT scores will get you in easy. If you have a white life story you will need to have other qualifications in addition to a high SAT score.
Thanks for posting.
You’re welcome. Our local paper (The Chapel Hill News) is published on Sunday and Wednesday; there was nothing about this incident in Sunday’s paper, although curiously Durham’s paper had an article on Saturday. Waiting to see what tomorrow’s edition will say.
I saw this in the College I attended, although there was no key. The teachers Aides, who were the top students in the school had access to the tests prior to taking them. All they had to do is then sit down in a group and make sure they made a perfect answer sheet for each test.
This used to bother me, especially when one black student who never studied was always on the deans list. On one occasion he must have made the Teachers Aide Group mad as his test grade on one test dropped from the usual 95-100 down to an 18, that’s how stupid he actually was.
All of the honored Teachers Aides from the different classes from year to year also passed down tests questions to underclassman aides to keep the ring going.
I must say that a few of the students among this ring were actually extremely brilliant and smart. These were the ones who would also build cheat sheets if the test wasn’t available prior to the test date. The answers would then get passed down from him and spread to his elite group of other Teachers aides.
Even though I knew this was going on, I held my own, grade wise and occasionally would beat this group when they were unable to get a cheat scam during a test going. This would then make a professor think I was doing the cheating. Then on the next test he would eye me like a hawk while the cheaters could do their dirty work again.
I’m sure this cheating is probably going on at this same colllege to this day. I ran into some of the Schools college recrutiers and told them the whole story to their shock and dismay. They promised to do something about it, but I bet they didn’t.
What beats all, is many students paid a lot of hard earned money to learn very little if anything. I always wondered how some of these students panned out in the working world unless they cheated and back stabbed others up the corporate ladder.
The demise of the great American System as people become lazier and cheat there way through life in what they think is an honorable way of doing it.
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