Students face prison terms for cheating

Nine New Hampshire students may go to prison for cheating on exams. The story was featured in this morning's Boston Globe:

School cheating scandal divides N.H. town
Criminal charges too harsh, some say

By Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff | September 19, 2007

HANOVER, N.H. - Academics is serious business in this well-to-do town, where life revolves around Dartmouth College. Ivy League credentials rank alongside Subaru wagons and restored farmhouses as status symbols, and high school students are expected to excel and land acceptances to prestigious universities.

So, as final exams loomed and pressure built last June at Hanover High School, some students hatched a scheme for acing the tests: One evening after school was out, a group of students entered the school building, authorities say. While some stood sentry in hallways, others entered a classroom and used stolen keys to break into a teacher's filing cabinet and steal exams for advanced math honors, advanced math, Algebra II, and calculus. Five days later, another group stole chemistry finals. In total, some 50 students are suspected of participating in the thefts, either helping to plan them or receiving answers from stolen exams.

Rather than issuing suspensions or grade demotions, school officials notified police. And after a seven-week investigation, the police prosecutor handling the case brought criminal charges against nine students. Last week, the prosecutor notified the nine students' parents that if they chose to take the cases to trial, he could raise misdemeanor charges to felonies, which carry possible prison terms of 3 1/2 to seven years.

Parents of the accused are furious and frantically trying to reduce charges to violations that carry no criminal penalties, penalties they say could harm their children's chances of attending college or securing employment. The scandal has divided the community, with some residents laying blame squarely on the nine accused students - dubbed "the Notorious Nine" - while others have questioned whether the intense competitiveness of 750-student Hanover High forced students into positions of having to cheat.

Some have also questioned the motives of police, suggesting they are using the incident to show that children of privilege - the parents of the accused include a physician, a business school professor, a hospital president, and a columnist at a local newspaper - are not above the law.

Christopher O'Connor, the prosecutor, said in a telephone interview that he is treating the students as he would anyone who had committed a crime of similar magnitude. Although 17-year-olds are treated as adults in criminal cases in New Hampshire, he said he had opted to charge them with Class B misdemeanors, which carry maximum penalties of $1,200 fines, rather than Class A, which carry possible prison terms.

"What I look at from my office . . . is whether someone should be held accountable for their actions and whether charges are consistent with the charges of other kids their ages," O'Connor said.

Nancy Gray, the Grafton County attorney who would handle the cases if O'Connor chooses to upgrade them to felonies, said the crimes the students allegedly committed are serious and deserve serious consequences.

"The parents need to be reasonable," she said. "This is technically a Class B felony offense. How can you reduce that to a violation-level offense - which is for something like spitting on the sidewalk? Although you don't want to hammer them, you want them to know this is serious."

But parents of the accused students say the charges are a draconian punishment for 17- and 18-year-olds.

"They are charged with watching their friends commit stupidity," said John Arbogast, whose son is charged with serving as a lookout.

"What's frightening as a parent is that a 17-year-old makes one little mistake and he's going to have a potential prison sentence," said Jim Kenyon, a columnist for The Valley News, whose son is also accused of acting as lookout and now attends private school.

Particularly troubling, parents interviewed said, is that the school turned the matter over to police; they said the incident should have been handled internally, where punishment would never have resulted in a criminal record.

"This always should have been a school matter," said Debbie Hadley, a nurse whose two sons have been charged.

School officials said that they are planning to conduct an investigation of the cheating allegations but that the alleged breaking and entering and theft portion belonged in the hands of police.

"We have never called the police for a cheating incident. But there is never a time when we would not call the police when someone breaks into our building," said Wayne Gersen, superintendent of School Administrative Unit #70, which oversees Hanover High School.

Gersen said that before the cheating scandal revelations, school officials had discovered two screens cut and teachers had reported keys missing for the science and math resource centers. The day before the alleged theft of the chemistry exam, a guidance counselor had witnessed three male students climb through a school window. The boys had told the counselor they were trying to retrieve notebooks to study.

"Hanover High students are very diligent and study very hard for exams. So it seemed a plausible explanation," Gersen said.

The school's investigation of the cheating has been delayed by the nine students' attorneys, who have advised their clients not to speak to the school until the criminal charges are settled. The school last week sent a letter to parents of the students promising that anything they say about the alleged cheating and theft would not be relayed to the police.

Gersen said that once the school concludes its investigation, students found to be involved will face school sanctions, which could include three-day suspensions for taking part in the theft and a zero grade on any exam where stolen information was used.

In addition, he said, school guidance counselors will make note of the cheating findings on the students' college applications.

Parents interviewed declined to allow their sons to speak publicly, citing the criminal cases.

In Hanover, efforts to stem cheating are underway. A committee of high school students, teachers, school board officials, and community members, with input from an ethicist, is discussing a reformulation of the cheating policy for Hanover High. A local church held a forum last Sunday to discuss the moral implications of the scandal, while the school principal last week called a meeting for the senior class to discuss the impact on the school.

Among Hanover High students, opinions about the scandal remain mixed.

"I think they should be given another chance because they made a mistake," said Tariku Foster, a sophomore who is friends with some of the accused students.

But others said the issue is clear cut.

"They're cheating. They're breaking into the school. They deserve what they got," said Hannah Stone, a freshman.