<p>Hello, I am a father of a child that attends a state university (trying to stay somewhat anonymous, sorry) . My son was accused of cheating during an exam in December and was notified of it February 1st this year. It was an online math test and he had his phone on him and not on the table as he was supposed to. He says he did not cheat and apologized many times. His phone was completely cracked and broken and I don't know how he could have; however, after his hearing was cancelled five times and pushed back 4 months, he was found guilty yesterday for cheating. He seemed very upset for a long time. </p>
<p>Long story short, he got into a different university couple weeks ago closer to home that is much cheaper. Unfortunately, I can't afford his current school at the time and was going to have him transfer next fall. It says that the school will put a hold on his account for sending transcripts and we will find out his sanctions in a few weeks. The last day of school for him is May 17th and I am wondering if it would be a good idea to tell his associate justice that he plans to withdraw from the university due to personal reasons after this semester. I am hoping they don't go too hard on him in hopes his transfer admission does not get revoked or he is not able to send out his final transcripts. I read that possible sanctions could be service hours and I don't know if that would be enough time to complete them before the end of the year. </p>
<p>I'm not sure if it would look good or bad for the outcome of his sanctions if we told them he isn't coming back. By the way this whole incident is not like him and he is a very good kid who averages A's and B's. He is a freshman on his second semester and first semester he got a 3.34. Could someone please offer some advice on how we should proceed. Thank you.</p>
<p>Wow, it seems like it took a long time for him be accused, and longer still to be found guilty. By “associate justice,” do you mean a school appointed advocate, or lawyer or what? The delays sound really fishy to me. I’d seek legal counsel if you can afford it.</p>
<p>Yes, he was reported to the honor court the same day without his knowledge and right after winter break he got an email about it. By associate justice I mean the person that is in charge of his case and the one that held the meeting for the case yesterday. The original AJ was replaced after the court meeting was cancelled the 4th time.</p>
<p>Just had a thought. While he is guilty of having his phone where it shouldn’t have been, do you believe he actually used it to cheat? He says he didn’t; do they have proof he did? Can technology be used here to check if he had formulas or whatever stored on his phone? The police can check this stuff since nothing is ever really deleted. Perhaps there would be leniency if some data retrieval expert testified there was no evidence he stored anything of mathematical value on the phone. It may be too late if he already had to sign some sort of acceptance of the decision.</p>
<p>He has not signed anything after the decision was made, however, I feel like they will just prolong this entire case if we try to appeal and I really need my son to be able to transfer. I would just like to know if letting them know of this decision is a smart idea. Thanks for all the help though.</p>
<p>The transfer school will require a final transcript from his current University. That transcript will list his cheating honor violation. They will more than likely revoke his admission. Universities simple don’t like to take that chance. Listen to GFG. Your son has potential to never attend another school with a cheating mark on his transcript. Your first concern should be proving him innocent if he is.</p>
<p>What you want to accomplish is keeping it off the transcript. From what you say, it is more like a procedural violation than an actual allegation of cheating. Find out your appeal rights, and try to bargain with the school to accept a sanction as long as it stays off the transcript. Maybe get phone logs from the cell provider showing no usage of the phone during the time of the exam.</p>
<p>Sounds like there is more to the story. There can’t be a rule that there must be a phone on the table. Because what if you don’t have one? If it was in his pocket all the time, how did someone see it in order to report it?</p>
<p>It might simply be that the “honor code” says that anyone with a phone on their person which is not on the table will be presumed guilty of cheating. (Which, by the way, sounds like a very reasonable rule to me.) Obviously, they knew he had the phone (was he using it during the exam?)</p>
<p>I too think that he should want to keep it off his transcript. But if that’s not possible, just move on. People do make mistakes in life and recover.</p>
<p>Listen to Operadad here!
Also be reminded that few guilty people ever admit all their guilt. Particularly young people. Some deny all, some admit to parts. No one likes to be found guilty.
Also, a couple rhetorical questions:
Did the new school ask why he desires transfer? Did he answer- because of a cheating scandal? Or did he mislead them about that?
why is the young man apologizing multiple times if he did nothing wrong?</p>
<p>He’s apologizing for having forgotten and not put his phone on the table. I wonder why he would be carrying the phone at all if it was cracked and broken and unusable. Of course, if he is leveling with his dad, that may be why he forgot he had it. I also wonder how someone detected that he HAD the phone if he didn’t use it in some way.</p>
<p>Yes Consol, there are peculiar questions surrounding the situation, as you mention in your post 11.
My best wishes that the truth comes out, and that all can learn lessons, with as few consequences as possible.</p>
<p>As others have said, it’s important that you try to get this off of your son’s transcript. Your son could take a gap year and work to pay loans or whatever while you work on clearing this up. Then, he can apply to transfer to whichever school would be more affordable, etc. Without clearing it up, his chances of continuing his education are weak, since many schools will not want a transfer student accused of cheating.</p>
<p>Have they passed sanctions or actually expelled him? At some schools he would be allowed to withdraw with nothing on record to prevent acceptance to other school. You need to be clear on exactly where he stands with school that accused him.</p>
<p>Let us not forget that being found guilty does not equate to actually BEING guilty. Although I would still love to know how someone knew he had a phone.</p>
<p>I would seek legal counsel asap, to seek your options from this point, since decision has been made. Cell phone providers can give usage details for internet usage, phone calls, texts, but do not track downloads or know what documents are stored on your phone unless you could prove a total device backup to a cloud storage to show everything on the phone at a set date and time and even then, there is nothing to show what was acessed, if it’s stored on the phone. Sounds like you should have sought legal advice in February. It is odd that they waited two months to notify your son of the charges and with the delays, I am surprised they could do anything, but I guess colleges have their own rules and timetables.</p>
<p>A computer forensics specialist would easily be able to see what had been stored on the phone. It doesn’t take backing up the data to a cloud provider. When you delete files, you only delete the file’s space in the directory structure. The data is rarely gone. There are all kinds of programs out there to get the data off of the phone and see what was there unless the phone has been degaussed.</p>