Roanoke County Public Schools (RCPS) has a good reputation in educating students in grades K-7 and should be commended. However, cheating remains an extremely serious problem on non-SOL testing on school-issued laptops, which has been a chronic problem since 2007.
I taught Latin at Hidden Valley High School from 2011 to 2013, and took every precaution in preventing cheating but to no avail. Cheating is still a widespread problem at all five county high schools including the eighth grade since August 2015. I spoke about this problem before the School Board on March 24 and the Board of Supervisors on April 26, but unfortunately nothing was ever resolved.
I believe that RCPS is in violation of Standard 7 (C) (3) of the Code of Virginia, which states that “the standards of student conduct and attendance and enforcement procedures [are] designed to provide that public education be conducted in an atmosphere free of disruption and threat to persons or property and supportive of individual rights” (§ 22.1-253.13:7).
There is no question that RCPS currently has adequate “standards of student conduct” and policies in place for academic integrity. Unfortunately, the central office of RCPS and the administrators at the five county high schools cannot realistically enforce these policies or rules when students take an online non-SOL test or quiz on school-issued laptops. It is extremely easy for a student to cheat without getting caught making the “enforcement procedures” in Standard 7 (C) (3) almost meaningless.
The problem is that students have complete access to both their hard drives and the internet during an online test, and it is impossible for a dedicated teacher to watch fifteen or thirty laptop screens from the back of the room and also look for such traditional cheating as crib sheets and smartphones.
Students can easily right click on Google, access the Snipping Tool, copy and paste answers, hide a cheat sheet, email passwords, etc. and most insidiously program a key to perform screen captures of an entire test or quiz to a Google server without the teacher ever knowing it. This testing environment is the direct opposite of state-mandated SOL testing, which requires a lockdown browser and other needed software in order to prevent digital cheating.
Standard 7 (C) (3) clearly states that “public education be conducted in an atmosphere” “supportive of individual rights” (§ 22.1-253.13:7). RCPS has violated the “individual rights” of honest students who obey the rules or “standards of student conduct” (§ 22.1-253.13:7).
The honest students are at a distinct disadvantage in competing against the dishonest ones in terms of lower GPAs, lower class ranking, and less academic awards, which also negatively impacts college admissions, scholarships and grants. There is a de facto system of academic apartheid between the honest students and the dishonest ones or cheaters in grades 8-12 throughout RCPS, thereby negligently allowing a non-level playing field and creating a negative “atmosphere” of learning.
Like Major League Baseball players in the 1990s until 2005 during the steroid era, many honest students ask themselves if they should cheat in order to get ahead academically while the dishonest students never ask themselves this question. This is a moral dilemma every honest student faces during the academic year at every county high school and all the other county schools in grades 8-12.
In addition, Standard 7 (C) (3) states that “public education be conducted in an atmosphere” “free of disruption” (§ 22.1-253.13:7). Not only is cheating both academically disruptive and morally wrong it also teaches bad “citizenship” by negative example for irresponsible and NOT “responsible participation in American society,” which is both a violation of the public trust and Standard 1 (C) (§ 22.1-253.13:1).
RCPS should not be teaching its students to be emulating such notorious “cheats” as Lance Armstrong, Mark McGwire, Lenny Dykstra and Alex Rodriguez, not to mention Swiss banks, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen. Lastly, cheating certainly does not “foster public confidence” in RCPS, which is one of the five “accreditation standards” of the “public education system” in Virginia (8VAC20-131-10).
RCPS has not been in compliance with both Standards 7 (C) (3) and 1 (C) in grades 9-12 since 2007 and grade 8 since 2015. There needs to be an immediate external investigation from Richmond in order to ascertain the status of the school district’s state accreditation, and determine who has been either responsible or complicit in this shameful and preventable academic misconduct. The students, parents and taxpayers in Roanoke County all deserve more integrity and better accountability from their public schools.
Robert Maronic is a former teacher and currently resides in Roanoke.
