The principal at Churchill High School in Potomac, Md., briefed teachers Monday on the investigation of five students who allegedly changed grades, sources told News4.
One of the students has left the school and may be leaving the country, the principal said.
As many as 60 students may have had their grades changed.
A group of students allegedly hacked into the school's computer system and charged money to improve grades while lowering grades of some students they disliked.
The scheme was detected last week but may have been going on for two and a half years, a source told News4.
"I have two kids at Churchill -- I'm appalled," said Cari Shane Parven, who criticized the grading system on the Huffington Post. "Mostly I'm appalled because I'm worried that the school's not going to do enough, so my concerns may be ahead of themselves."
Teachers who are strapped with six classes of 25 to 30 students per class (that's 200 to 300 students a day) cut down on their workload in part by offering multiple-choice tests that are graded by a computer and also by reusing tests year after year. For this reason students are infrequently given back hard copies of their assignments or tests (to prevent cheating the following year) to show their parents or guardians. This system, while good for the teachers is not good for the students. It means, first, that students cannot actually learn from their mistakes because they don't know where they made those mistakes and, second, that parents have little or no idea how their kids are actually faring at school. Ed-line, an on-line grading warehouse that reports grades only, becomes their hollow yardstick.
Local
Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia local news, events and information
Officials believe students attached a USB device to three teachers' computers in order to learn their passwords and then get in to the system to change grades.
