Wednesday, May 29, 2019 Vol. 56 Issue 8 Homestead High School 21370 Homestead Rd, Cupertino, CA 95014
The Epitaph
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AP students face repercussions for academic dishonesty By Andrea Sun, Saanvi Thakur and Renee Wang A wave of AP class cheating scandals have coursed throughout campus, all within a span of a few months. AP Chemistry, AP U.S. Government and AP U.S. History are the AP classes affected by the scandals with offenses ranging from falsified participation grades to cheating on finals. Despite the many occurances of cheating in such close proximity, this event was not an anomaly as cheating occurs sporadically throughout campus, dean Lisa Pinelli said. The recent cheating scandals align with the fast changing cheating trends in high school. According to Stanford University, in the past, it was more common for students who were struggling in class to cheat. Today, it is the “above average, college bound” students who are more likely to cheat, An anonymous source said two pairs of students were caught cheating in AP Chemistry by teacher Susan Mrozack. The teacher noticed the students had identical lab reports when grading them. In AP U.S. History, students were caught buying a stamp that was a replica to the stamp teacher Greg Russo used to mark participation grades, in addition to cheating on homework assignments, according to junior Atharva Shah. As a result of the cheating, Russo decided not to input participation grades for all students, regardless of whether or not they were implicated in the cheating scandal. “Participation [has the potential] to [really help your grade],” Shah said. “Once you get into the habit [of cheating], it is detrimental not only
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for you, but also your classmates.” In AP U.S. Government, several students were found to have cheated on the final when a substitute teacher had taken over, AP U.S. Government teacher Christy Heaton said. “I was thinking … I [almost] spent the entire year without [cheating] happening, which is kind of remarkable,” Heaton said. “I don’t know why [the students that cheated] did so when they were completely capable of doing fine on their own.” The consequences for cheating can be especially severe for seniors taking classes such as AP U.S. Government. “[The students caught cheating] ended up having an F on the final, which dropped their grade by two letter grades, [potentially affecting] their eligibility for college,” Heaton
said. In instances where students may have already been accepted into college, Pinelli said there are typically consequences that follow academic dishonesty. “If a student is caught cheating in an incident … [it] will result in that student’s grade dropping to a D, or even an F potentially,” Pinelli said. “So then when you go submit that to your college, university … those universities sometimes will call us to ask what happened.” One junior involved in both the AP Chemistry and AP U.S History scandal was rescinded from Brown University. This was a result of the zero he received in AP U.S History, which
RECENT CHEATING SCANDALS have been causing troubles with college admissions.
Illustration by Renee Wang
brought his grade down to an F, breaking his agreement with the university to keep his grades above a D, the anonymous source said. Though, in this instance, the student was rescinded from the university, school administrators have the ability to notify colleges about students’ behavior and actions. “The other thing that that we haven’t done but we could do and have discussed doing would be to attach a note to the transcript … letting the university know that there is a red flag here,” Pinelli said. The root of cheating has not been directly addressed, but students will receive consequences based on the teachers’ discretion, Pinelli said. Despite the detrimental consequences that come from cheating, it remains a prevelant issue on campus. Shah said he has seen some form of cheating in all of his 6 classes within the past month. According to Stanford University, the stigma of cheating has lessened as admission into universities has become increasingly competitve, creating a culture in which students become more willing to do anything to obtain an A. “[It is a] competitive environment, [here] with [factors such as] pressure from parents and the stress fron junior year,” Shah said. In addition, another factor that may prompt a student to cheat is the availibility of resources online. “[Perhaps] its just apart of the culture nowadays where you can just get things online, so you should be able to use that instead of doing it on your own,” Heaton said.
Miscommunication leads to new leadership structure next year
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CHEATING SCANDALS TEAR THROUGH CAMPUS
CONTROVERSY ARISES FROM CLASS ELECTIONS
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STUDENTS WHO SUBMITTED their written applications for elections late were accidentally added to the ballot.
By Shruti Magesh When the class election results were posted on the door of the ASB classroom on May 3, a plethora of controversy ensued. This controversy stemmed from a mistake where students who did not run for a spot in the leadership team were placed on the voting ballot. The falsely placed candidates ended up winning the election,
leading to an argument about the authenticity of their elected status. The deadline for the written component of the application for candidates closed around 9:30 p.m. However, due to some miscommunication, people continued to submit their applications after the deadline, Jessica Kirby said. “I had forgot to take two of the applicants out [because they applied late], so when we created our online system for voting ... I transferred the names over, and I forgot to take the two names out, so they accidentally got onto the application,” Kirby said. This mistake was not initially noticed, as there was a considerable amount of people running, Kirby said. In addition, Kirby did not have access to the voting portal, which allowed the mistakenly placed candidates to stay on the ballots. “So what happened was those people [who were not initially running] won,” Kirby said, “and it wasn’t brought to my attention until after I immediately posted the results, that I had made this error.” The initial reaction of the leadership team was to hand the position to the student who received
the next highest amount of votes, since it was deemed unfair to allow those who had not campaigned to receive the position. However, after meeting with the administration and rest of leadership team, this decision was revoked. “We ended up deciding as a team that I should just give it to both the social managers with their permission obviously,” Kirby said. “So we sat down with them and admitted our mistake ... we said ‘you know what, let’s go ahead and offer it to all four of them,’ and they all decided to take it”. The mistake regarding the class elections started discussion about the effectiveness of the election process. “The system of elections is just broken and it’s not suitable for the environment that we’re running,” freshman Benjamin Sun said. “I think there’s too little campaigning involved, too little preparation and there’s not that much thought that goes into it.” This led students to suggest more efficient forms of campaigning, that draws attention to what the campaigners stand for. “I think there needs to be more
work while campaigning, because right now campaigning is limited to ... you put up 6 posters at max and you walk around and show your face and even then,” Sun said. “Not many people will vote for you and listen to you.” Popularity plays a major role in determining who will recieve the positions, rather than other factors Sun said. The issue that arose with the class elections will be prevented in the future through various means, such as double checking all the candidates who are running, Kirby said. “It will never happen again, this is the only time we will ever have two social managers for those two classes,” Kirby said. “It was an oversight on my part, so I’m just going to make sure that I am double checking.” Although the mishap that occurred led to some initial confusion and disputation, it also gave way to opportunities to try out a new structure for leadership positions. “In a weird way, even though it was a mistake, I feel like this was a good opportunity to try something a little bit new,” Kirby said.
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