Dozens of Tucson High Magnet School students may not graduate next week since officials say they discovered three students were charging classmates money to change grades.
The cheating scandal was discovered late last week. It involves 50 students in a school-credit recovery course. Most are seniors; the rest are juniors.
“It appears a few students were able to get the teacher’s password,” said TUSD spokeswoman Stefanie Boe.
It’s possible a student may have been looking over the teacher’s shoulder as she logged in, Boe said.
The teacher noticed that grades in the system were different than what she had entered, Boe said. She told the principal, who reported the situation to district officials.
District officials, citing an ongoing probe, refused to say Wednesday how much students were paying to have their grades changed.
TUSD will determine whether there is a need for law enforcement involvement once the investigation is complete.
Some of the students who changed their grades were extremely close to graduating, but will now have to make up the class over the summer, TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez said.
“There’s a right way of doing things — you work hard, you earn the grade and you pass the class,” he said. “And then there’s a wrong way, and there are consequences for doing things the wrong way and the students are facing the ultimate consequence.
“Academic dishonesty is not tolerated.”
TUSD will consider revising practices, including changing passwords more frequently, in an effort to prevent a similar situation, Sanchez said.
“By and large we’re graduating 3,000 students,” Sanchez said.
“We have 50 who made bad decisions; the majority of our students work very hard, they earn their grades the right way and they walk across the stage with honor.”
