7 Students Face Legal Action in School Cheating Scandal

Seven students from Patrick Henry High School who duplicated master keys and repeatedly entered a school copying room to take copies of upcoming tests will be suspended and turned over to the Juvenile Court system for legal punishment, Assistant Supt. Frank Till said Tuesday.

Another 45 students who shared in the purloined test information will face as-yet undetermined academic sanctions, which could include loss of grades, ineligibility for non-classroom activities, and other actions, Till said.

The Patrick Henry faculty is still debating the academic sanctions because it wants to make sure the punishment is uniform, Till said.

The cheating scandal occurred over months and was caught only after teachers began to suspect something was amiss, compiling what Principal Shirley Peterson has called “bits and pieces” of suspicious evidence, including a tip from one student.

The test purloining was finally uncovered in December after an instructor at the San Carlos school pulled a bait-and-switch, deliberately placing a false exam in the copying room. Several students subsequently wrote answers based on the false exam when given a different test by the teacher in class, Peterson said.

Till said Tuesday that none of the seven ringleaders will be expelled because “they committed no bodily harm.” The suspensions will be followed by moving the students to another district high school as “a punishment without interrupting” their education, Till said.

He said the school wants to follow through with charging the students with illegal entry, even though the students will probably be placed in diversion or other non-trial programs under the Juvenile Court.

“I think the point that needs to be made is that (legal action) is a consequence of breaking the law,” Till said.