cheating scandal (source :wash post)

Parents Forum
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<p>Friday, January 29, 2010 </p>

<p>Students at a Potomac high school hacked into the school's computer system and changed class grades, according to sources briefed by the school's principal, and officials are investigating how widespread the damage might be. </p>

<p>The incident prompted an emergency staff meeting at Churchill High School, a top school in one of the nation's premier public systems, and a recorded phone message to parents Wednesday saying that grades might have been corrupted by the hackers. </p>

<p>The extent of the apparent security breach was not immediately clear. Teachers at the school were being asked to review their grades for discrepancies. The students involved used a computer program to capture passwords from at least one teacher, according to school sources familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. </p>

<p>"We are investigating an allegation that some students compromised our grading system and may have changed some grades," said Dana Tofig, a spokesman for the school system. "We're in the process of interviewing students." </p>

<p>He said teachers discovered a problem earlier this week and brought it to the attention of the school's administration. According to one source, an information technology department worker came to the school this week to interview students. </p>

<p>"We take the security of student info and data very, very seriously," he said. "If it's found that students did breach the system and change the grades, it would be a very, very serious violation." </p>

<p>At an emergency meeting Wednesday morning, Churchill's principal, Joan C. Benz, informed teachers and staff members that students obtained access to the grading system and modified grades, according to three sources familiar with the meeting, two of whom were present. </p>

<p>Benz did not respond to a phone message left at her home Thursday night. </p>

<p>Teachers were told to check grades for anomalies and correct them before first semester report cards are released Feb. 3, according to the sources. But because teachers at the school no longer keep separate log books of their grades, it might be difficult to go back and find a student's original grade, the sources said. </p>

<p>Some teachers are careful to print out grades immediately after entering them in the system, one source said, but if grades were left on the computer system for any length of time before they were printed out, they could have been modified even on the printed version. </p>

<p>School officials urged Churchill teachers to change their passwords immediately and rotate them more often, the sources said. </p>

<p>The 2,100-student school has a 98 percent graduation rate, 11 points higher than Montgomery County as a whole. Its average SAT scores were 1820 out of a possible 2400 in the 2008-09 school year, the second highest in the county. </p>

<p>News of the incident swept through hallways Thursday, students said. </p>

<p>"There's obviously a lot of rumors going around the school," said Churchill senior Kelsey O'Donnell, 18. "They asked one of my friends if she wanted her grades changed, and she said no. . . . When she found out that they got in trouble, she was so happy that she wasn't a part of it." </p>

<p>Staff writers Daniel de Vise, Mark Giannotto, Donna St.</p>

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<p>This reminds me of when Ferris Bueller changed the number of days that he was absent.</p>

<p>Of course, this is awful, but it just reminded me of that.</p>

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What a shame that her friend wasn’t bothered enough to report it (assuming that she didn’t).</p>

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<p>^Unfortunately, for most high-schoolers the moral principle of not ratting on your friends usually takes precedence over the moral principle of reporting cheating.</p>

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<p>The kids who did this are in a heck of a lot more trouble than if they had just kept their C+ in Chemistry.</p>

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<p>The hackers apparently lowered the grades of kids they didn’t like too!</p>

<p>For many years, Maryland had a week-long test that was just tabulated to measure school success. Imagine your child in school for a week, and you get no feedback on how they’re doing individually on these tests? Anyway, there was at least one elementary school (in Potomac!!) where the principal was fudging the numbers so that their school would come out on top from these tests. This was several years ago since those Maryland assessment tests were made illegal by No Child Left Behind. </p>

<p>Now I wonder if the hackers were in that particular elementary school and learned the principal’s awful lesson! She was fired, they should be treated likewise.</p>

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<p>The hackers apparently lowered the grades of kids they didn’t like too!</p>

<p>OMG…</p>

<p>Well, hopefully, those kids can provide past report cards to show what their grades should be.</p>

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<p>Wow, what a mess. I’ll be interested to see how this whole thing shakes out.</p>

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</p>

<p>For most adults too. Including for police, for example.</p>

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<p>A Churchill parent quoted on the local news this morning: “I just think that they put too much pressure on the kids.” So now it’s the school’s or the education system’s fault!</p>

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<p>There’s plenty of fault to go around here. It sounds as if the computer system was terribly insecure–no requirement that passwords be changed regularly, one teacher’s password allowing access to everyone’s records.</p>

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<p>LOL, why would that girl tell anyone?</p>

<p>If someone came up to me and was like “PSSTT, we’re going to hack into the computer system and change grades!” I’d be like, “Yeah, right, SUUUUUuuuure you are.”</p>

<p>Looks like they were solid for it, though :P.</p>

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<p>The method used by the students to obtain the teacher’s password does not indicate that the grade database itself is insecure…they used a keystroke capture program, which means they were able to install something on a computer the teacher or administrator used. The database could be perfectly secure, have adequate password expiration, strength rules etc. Keystroke capture programs sniff out your password by simply recording keystrokes. If students are able to install software on teacher’s or administrator’s computers - that’s a different problem.</p>

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<p>It is not correct that a teacher should have access to ALL student grades…only a high level administrator should have those privileges - maybe they obtained that account. You would think the grade application would be designed to have a complex delineation of privileges…but it takes people to design and administer these applications correctly. The teacher should only be able to update grades for students in their classes. Proper security administration is frequently NOT in budgets! (let’s say we have security and not implement it correctly! I see it all the time and I’ve worked in big global companies that can afford to do it right, yet make conscious decisions not to) Good defense is done in layers.</p>

<p>We may never know the root cause. They probably don’t even have staff in Montgomery County to do the proper forensics on it to prove how it was done.</p>

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<p>Interesting this should come up now. My middle schooler recently had to have a class changed. Her guidance counselor did it while she was in the room and My darling now knows the guidance counselor’s passwords. After she told me, we had a long discussion about why it would be inappropriate to do anything with that knowledge.</p>

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<p>mom2collegekids,</p>

<p>It doesn’t sound like they’re report card grades. It sounds like it’s <em>class</em> grades-- as in currently-in-progress class grades that are recorded online. Lots of school systems have online grading where the parents can log in and keep track of grades. It’s interesting that it says teachers no longer keep log books. I would have thought they had back-up.</p>

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<p>This happened at my HS when I was a freshman. It was essentially identical, they used a program to obtain an administrator password and went through and changed grades. Although, the school was some how able to figure out which grades were changed on the computers, and seeing that only two students had any grades changed they had a pretty good idea where to start their search.</p>

<p>The hilarious part is that they would have gotten away with it if they did not send an email to the principle asking about why people in the class had certain class ranks if other people had higher GPAs. It tipped of the principle because students only have access to their own GPAs and class ranks.</p>

<p>Someone somewhere has gotten away with this. Let’s face it, high schools (or at least my highs school) have horrible computer networks. Students know how to beat just about every safe guard on them. There was a kid who got caught downloading and watching porn during a computer class. Yes, he was at a cubical and thought no one could see him. Obviously, if this idiot can get around the schools content control and anti-download software, just about anyone would be able to get around the settings that did not allow students to install programs.</p>

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<p>So I live near the neighborhood where this happened. Apparently, the ring leader, a junior, is the son of a diplomat, was pulled out of school the day this broke and immediately returned to his native country to be beyond the reach of the law.</p>

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<p>The latest word on this is that grades may have been changed for 60 students, and that grades going back two years may have been changed. It is unclear if records exist to show what the grades should have been. I’m trying to imagine the repercussions if a kid who had his grades lowered was rejected from a college.</p>

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<p>geezermom - what a funny quote! If anyone is putting pressure on these kids, it is the parents themselves. This is one of those areas where the sticker on your car says it all.</p>

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<p>@hunt - where did you hear that? I read in yesterday’s Gazette that criminal charges are not being considered now and it will be taken care of “in house”. </p>

<p>It’s funny because I know a boy who was charged with 4 juvenile felonies last year for setting off a chemical combustion in plastic water bottles on a day off school. The bomb squad division of the fire marshall’s office gave him and two other boys hell. Of course it was stupid, illegal, potentially hazardous, and just a dumb form of entertainment.</p>

<p>We treat white collar crime so differently (this is the same county as Potomac). I wonder if the hackers were dragged out of school in handcuffs and spent a night alone in a jail cell?</p>