The Observer » hacking

Teen Talks does not amend past wrongs

Afanaroff — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:23:09 +0000

The teenage years are all about learning. They’re a time to take risks, to make decisions, to explore identities and to make mistakes, all as part of a learning and growing experience.
When a group of students from the current senior class were caught after hacking into the school’s computer system last year in order to change their grades and the grades of their peers, a scandal immediately broke out. Many were suspended from CHS and a few left the school, but MCPS decided last spring to let these students back to CHS for the 2010-2011 school year. Two of the students who were key players in the cheating scandal have formed a club called “Teen Talks” with goals to talk with students and provide them with guidance on avoiding pressure. The students officially announced the details about their new club in a video on academic integrity that was shown to students.
While this club can be a chance for the two students to discuss what they have learned from the scandal and truly offer advice to students, to many students, the video did not seem convincing or genuine. Rather, the students proudly boasted about their new club and made themselves seem like victims.
The whole community cannot move on when these students are unwilling to present sincere apologies or accept responsibility for their actions. Instead, the constant focus of their video is pressure. In fact, the word “pressure” is mentioned 12 times by the two students in the video, and yet not once is any form of the word “cheating” mentioned. The closest either of them gets to actually mentioning their offenses is when one of the students states that he “made a bad choice back in spring,” but the “choice” is not explicitly mentioned or explained any further. (Side note: this “decision” was not a one-time incident as the student makes it appear, and the scandal actually broke out in the winter, not the spring.)
These kids drew so much negative attention to our school last year, and despite all of this, the school is trying to place these students in a positive light and present them as though they are helping our community. These students do not deserve to be recognized any further; it is wrong for the students to portray themselves as ill-fated souls who fought adversity or enlightened individuals who are willing to benevolently give out meaningful advice.
At one point in the video, one of the students states that he followed through with his actions “because that pressure was so strong that [he] just didn’t know how to deal with it and [he] didn’t have anyone to talk about it.”
The student should not try to justify his actions because he can never rightfully justify his and his peers’ actions; these students were not victims of anything: their misfortune was brought on by themselves. They illegally hacked into an entire system and took advantage of their teachers, placing their own personal priorities ahead of the school’s.
The other student tries to defend his actions by blaming it on his friends—“I was hanging out with kids that thought it was acceptable…I did not realize what was okay to do and what wasn’t.” Students feel peer pressured in high school all the time, but what we have been taught our entire lives—and we are still being taught—is to avoid peer pressure and make good decisions. It is unlikely that any peer of these students’ forced them to plug the USBs into their teachers’ computers and change their Cs to As.
Even if the students did in fact feel pressured, pressure cannot be used as a valid excuse—the blame should simply be placed on the students and their choices. If these students want to truly be forgiven in their community, they need to accept their actions and admit that what they did was wrong. The students cannot work around their problems or pretend that they were victims when in reality they were the transgressors. While not everyone will want to forgive these students, it is important that the students at least work a little harder to earn back the respect of their community members and genuinely show that they are sorry.

Benz, MCPS hold town hall meeting on grade changing scandal

jrheingold — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:27:27 +0000

Principal Joan Benz held a town meeting Monday, March 8 to further discuss and answer the community’s questions regarding the grade-changing issue uncovered in January. Speakers included Montgomery County community superintendent Sherry Liebes and chief technology officer Sherwin Collette. Although the administration was open to answering questions, they maintained the confidentiality of the students involved in the investigation.

HIGH SCHOOL HACKERS

adviser — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:50:28 +0000

CHS has always been known for its stellar academics, hardworking students and dedicated teachers, but now it’s known for something else as well: cheating.

The Incident

According to a Feb. 3 Gazette article, students used a program run off a portable USB device to uncover teachers’ passwords to the school grading system. Students and parents were notified of this event through a Jan. 27 phone call from Principal Joan Benz.

Although the identities and consequences of the specific students must remain confidential because all participating parties are minors, according to a Feb. 5 letter home to parents, disciplinary action has already been taken against seven of the students who were involved in this incident.

“We have an ongoing investigation and consequences have already been applied,” Benz said.

The administration and teachers worked to verify and correct all students’ grades in the past few weeks.

According to Benz, administration and teachers were able to uncover the number of abuse instances because the grade manipulation took place on the CHS computer database.

Benz will be holding a community meeting March 8 at 7 p.m. where she will be available to answer community questions.

The Colleges

Many CHS students are now left wondering what colleges will think of CHS after this incident.

“I don’t think this will affect [uninvolved students] with their admission to any university,” said Tracy Mitrano, director of IT policy at Cornell University. “A [university] would never assume based on one individual the legitimacy of an institution. Sometimes behavior does not reflect on an institutions’ citizenship unless it is repeated and there are not any steps to stop it.”

George Mason University Dean of Admissions Andrew Flagel also agrees that universities will not allow this incident to impact CHS’s strong reputation.

“CHS is an outstanding school,” Flagel said. “While I’m sure this incident may be remembered by a handful of admissions officers, I think it’s likely that most won’t remember by next year where the incident occurred.”

According to Benz, CHS will be in touch with colleges to confirm the validity of student’s grades.

“Colleges will trust that CHS will validate all of the grades,” Benz said. “Our reputation was always very good and the integrity of the school will be in place.”

Senior Alex Giedd, who will be attending Duke University next year, does not think this will affect her admission but thinks it may affect others.

“A friend of mine who will be attending Maryland next year received an e-mail from the college [track] coach asking her about the incident,” Giedd said. “She was not part of the cheating scandal, but it goes to show that news spreads fast.”

The Prevention

The administration and teachers have been working to ensure a security breach like this will not happen again.

“As soon as we [finish] the first levels of investigation, we will be doing the preventative measures of this operation,” Benz said.

The MCPS staff as a whole has been asked to change their computer passwords as one preventative measure.

The Reasons

While some wonder about how this happened, the most important question should be why this happened.

“In today’s world, high school and college are very demanding,” Mitrano said. “There is a lot of pressure these days.”

Giedd believes that while overall CHS is a good school, there will always be cheaters and people who break the rules.

“One good and bad aspect of CHS is that students seem to be obsessed with doing well,” Giedd said. “[This] can have negative consequences when students turn to cheating and grade hacking to attain the results they want to see.”

While senior Aishni Thiyagarajan believes that she puts the most pressure on herself to do well, Gorgei thinks that teachers add to the high-stress environment of high school.

“Teachers expect so much out of the students and expect perfection,” Gorgei said. “Even from freshman year teachers are focused on college.”

Just as most colleges have not changed their opinion of CHS, most students have not either.

“I wouldn’t say my perception of Churchill as a whole as changed,” senior Peggy Li said. “It would be completely unfair and wrong to blame [the] administration, or the teachers or the overall student population for something that several [students] did.”

While students believe that the incident may stay with CHS for a few years, it will hopefully not be the sole reason people remember the school.

“In 2020 when a CHS student is featured in the news, I highly doubt newspapers will add ‘CHS experienced a student grade-hacking incident in 2010’ at the end,” senior Peggy Li said.