<p>I think I would spend the money and hire an attorney. From your explanation, I can see why you would believe your daughter. I would believe her too. </p>
<p>I teach at a college. There is a lot of cheating. It makes us all a little jumpy, and sometimes, we jump to conclusions.</p>
<p>Thought I’d post an update on this. We are still fighting. My college student was interviewed finally the first week of April. Last week of April we were contacted by another investigator and thought yay they believe her but no, second investigator didn’t know first one had already talked to her. Four days later we got an e-mail saying they were proceeding to hearing and attached summaries of the investigations. Students interviews are the same. Turns out they interviewed the teacher the first week of March and he told them he had actually videotaped her on his phone during the final. We did not know of the videotape until we were notified they want to proceed to hearing. I am shocked and a little creeped out he videotaped my child. They won’t send us the video but do get to see it before the hearing. We told first investigator to interview our witness, they contacted her, set up a meeting and then didn’t show up so no interview with out witness. During e-mail communication with them this past week they have randomly set a hearing date the day before finals week and are hot and heavy to get this resolved before the end of the semester. Wow for alleged cheating during finals in December you take 4 months to investigate and now that you are done you want a hearing in a week! My child has test anxiety, was looking at scratch paper which she obtained from teacher. This is a mess but determined to beat them!</p>
<p>The video may well vindicate her-it can’t show something that didn’t happen. If all you see is her looking at her scratch paper, that should be obvious. Looking at something on your desk should appear different than looking to your left across an aisle and at a paper on another desk. You may end up being happy that it was documented.</p>
<p>I always told my kids “if I go to bat for you, you better darned well be telling me the truth. I’d be far angrier to find out I was defending you falsely than to just deal with the transgression.” Since your daughter knows there is video and she still wants you there to defend her and stand by her, it’s likely she is telling the truth, and hopefully the video will reflect that.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4-I agree! She at first was worried about the video because she knows with test anxiety she looks around the room but I told her in order to cheat she would have to have made some sort of intentional movement to strain to see the other girls paper. Looking to your left at your scratch paper takes no effort. She just feels a bit violated that she was videotaped and I don’t blame her for that.</p>
<p>Good luck, tomsgirl. This sounds like a nightmare no one needs or deserves. Let us know how it comes out.</p>
<p>D had an interesting situation last year during junior year in high school. Two sections of the class, D’s section took an exam the day before the other section. Results were that the other section performed order of magnitudes better than D’s section. Everyone in D’s section were given 0 on the exam - unless someone came forward to confess their crime. No one came forward - so D spent the rest of the semester climbing back from the setback. Schools pretty much do what they want unless you fight back - and I would definitely fight back in your situation. Best of luck.</p>
<p>Kennedy2010, that seems really counterintuitive. Firstly, assuming the students did cheat, it seems like just one person from the first section cheated whereas most of the second section cheated, so why only punish the first group? </p>
<p>Secondly, the consequences for the offender are potentially higher than just a 0 on the exam. If I were the cheat and I knew the kids in the second section would cover me (and why not, since if that were the case they would also be implicated in cheating), and I came forward, who knows what could be on the cards - fail the class, suspension, expulsion? I mean, I’m certainly not getting my grade back!</p>
<p>Thirdly, doesn’t the teacher have to be accountable too? In my first year at my high school, students could simply walk into the staff room. Some student walked in and stole a look at exam papers, was caught, and from my second year onwards, students had to be buzzed in by a teacher. Maybe the teacher inadvertently left the test lying around?</p>
<p>And lastly, this wouldn’t necessarily explain an orders-of-magnitude improvement in the second section alone, but to give everyone the benefit of the doubt - isn’t it simply possible that the extra day of preparation made all the difference? What is puzzling to me is that - students talk, and if this had been an actual cheating case across an entire section, I’m sure someone would know. Since no one has come forward or been reported maybe this simply isn’t cheating, just a fluke result.</p>
<p>tomsgirl, good luck. Hopefully the video vindicates your daughter.</p>
<p>pelicularities - I agree with your logic and discussed situation at length with D and other parents that I know. However, D didn’t want me to get involved so I didn’t. Others say that cheating has gone up significantly in recent years and the teacher wanted to make an example of this situation to deter future thoughts of cheating. In fact, a student athlete had their admission and scholarship revoked the year before for a similar infraction. Luckily, she still managed to squeak out a solid B in the class. It is what it is…</p>
<p>Well we lost our her hearing. She did a great job explaining what happened, the video showed her looking at her scratch paper but in the end they just want Honor Code convictions I guess. We knew going in their system was biased but I being the optimistic one thought justice would rule in the end. Not so much. I just am still in shock that they sat there and they listed to her appearing sympathetic and then screwed her in the end. Poor kid has severe test anxiety and watched the video and explained exactly what she is doing and they still found her guilty. I know her and the video clearly shows her freaking out because the teacher is staring at her and walking around her. She is doing her best to calm herself and it broke my heart to watch it. Please don’t comment that maybe she is really guilty because you don’t know my girl. NO ONE who knows her is not completely shocked that she has been accused of this. I just don’t understand why this has happened to her. She really has the worst luck. I am proud to say that through this whole process she was very respectful including looking straight at the professor who accused her of cheating and said I’m sorry my actions caused you to think I was cheating but I was not. I have raised a good kid too bad K-State hasn’t realized that.
Now for another question, she is set to graduate next year and cannot get in to this class next semester to repeat it because of her schedule and the classes are full. How bad is just leaving an F? She may eventually want to go to Grad school, will this affect her? It doesn’t help her GPA but honestly doesn’t hurt it as much as i tought it would. Any thoughts?</p>
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<p>Being found guilty of an honor code violation alone means she will have to explain that to grad adcoms/department Professors who may be wary of admitting a possible “cheater” into their program. This may also adversely affect employment in some career fields where perceived integrity/honesty are highly prized such as law. If this stands, all she can do with that is write a short addendum explaining the circumstances and letting the chips fall where they may. </p>
<p>The F on the transcript is a more minor issue in comparison though it ideally should be corrected…even if an extra semester is completed. Preferably with another Prof. </p>
<p>A reason why if I were you and you believe your D has been railroaded, I’d consider consulting an attorney who specializes in dealing with such issues along with knowledge of LD/psychological conditions to see if that will result in a compromise that will leave that stain off her transcript and conduct record. At this point, unless there are further route to appeals, this is probably your only option…even if it is an uncertain tenuous option at best.</p>
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<p>What career fields would be affected? Grad schools I get.</p>
<p>Honor code violations will likely prevent an individual from entering most healthcare professions. Medicine, dentistry, physician asst, clinical psychology, nursing, physical therapy, etc.–all of which place a high emphasis on ethical behavior.</p>
<p>^^that’s curious because I work in a hospital system and I did need to provide a transcript but not until after I had started working…and it was a transcript so grades but no comments of any kind. I had to order it from some company that provides college transcripts. I handed it to the HR file clerk who put it in my personnel file. I do believe the graduate schools would have a vested interest, but I’m still looking for specific career fields that would be affected by a college honor code violation. Criminal conduct by specific industry is spelled out, but honor code violations I’m not so sure. Personally I think it’s unfair to make blanket comments like this to the OP in a void. It seems like it would need to be a specific question on an application for that business because otherwise I’ve never encountered the need to disclose an honor code violation (although I’ve never had one) and I’ve been in a number of industries over the past 3 decades.</p>
<p>OP doesn’t mention scholarships, so I suppose it’s not applicable, but many scholarships can be revoked for honor code violations as well as for any other kind of misbehavior, even off campus.</p>
<p>I should have mentioned the honor code violation is removed from her transcript by taking a course in Honor and Integrity so it will just show an F. As for the attorney I would love to sue them all for what they have done to her. The professor caused her to fail the final (she would have passed the class with a zero, he felt he should fail her for the entire course), her grades are down this semester because of the additional stress and indont even want to mention what finding out your teacher videotaped you during an exam has done with her test anxiety. As a side note, she attended a Catholic High School where the priest has been convicted of taking photos up the girls skirts from the stairs below! I believe their system is set up where the student signs a pledge that they will abide by the monkey court of justice.</p>
<p>I’m so sorry, Tomsgirl. Injustices like this really make me angry. Did anyone ever contact your witnesses? Did anyone from the student services group that knew about her test anxiety speak up for her? Or did they just go ahead with their kangaroo court?</p>
<p>No scholarships involved and the field is Kinesiology with emphasis in public health. Also will probably end up coaching at the high school or college level.</p>
<p>Witness was allowed to write a statement which was impressive; No way she’d cheat she was ready for final Also impressive in that she and my daughter are kind of on the outs but she was still willing to do it. Kangaroo court said they didn’t want to have to make anyone interview her on such short notice. Sorry I’m so angry about this. It helps though to have these replies.</p>
<p>Short notice??? Are they kidding??? It has been MONTHS. And didn’t they make an appointment and not show up? And for this they will charge a kid with an honor violation and the blankety-blank prof will gratuitiously FAIL her???</p>
<p>Edit: obviously she should take their bogus “integrity” course–although it sounds to me as if they would not recognize integrity if it bit them on the ass. But she should NEVER do anything but maintain her complete innocence, no matter what.</p>
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<p>Financial companies even if one is not working directly in finance as I found when I had to answer questions about any disciplinary proceedings during college bearing on honesty/integrity as part of the hiring process.</p>
<p>Law schools and joining the bar is another one. Even if one has managed to gain admission to and graduate law school, having this on your record can complicate the character & fitness check needed to be eligible to join the state bar association necessary to practice as a lawyer. Several friends of friends ended up having to jump through many hoops and endure difficult questions during the character & fitness checks because of honor violations in college…especially if they failed to mention that in the questionnaires/law school applications. </p>
<p>In fact, the latter can give grounds for law schools to rescind law school admission/JD degrees even after graduation if they found out about it and it was substantiated.</p>