BREA : 2 Counselors Deny Changing Grades

Two more former Brea Olinda High School academic counselors, accused last week by top school officials of changing student letter grades to simple “pass” notations, have denied engaging in the practice.

Pat Fox, a longtime guidance counselor who retired from Brea Olinda in 1990, told school trustees at a meeting Monday night that she was “incensed” and “hurt” when she learned of the district’s accusations that former counselors illegally altered student transcripts to boost grade-point averages last year.

“I have never been accused of cheating,” Fox said. “We are an all-American school. We didn’t get there by cheating on grades. We don’t do that.”

Brea Olinda Unified School District trustees say they discovered just last month that about 360 grades from the 1992-93 school year were unlawfully altered by former counselors last fall. Principal John Johnson ordered the letter grades restored when he learned of the situation last October, but the matter did not become public until the teacher’s union filed a grievance that was discussed by the school board last month.

Another former counselor, Wilma Sauer, said in an interview Tuesday that she “never changed student grades.” In fact, Sauer said, counselors did not have access to the computer files in which transcripts are stored.

“We could look at student records, but we couldn’t change them,” Sauer said. “Only the registrar could, or the administrators.”

Supt. Edgar Z. Seal would not say specifically which former counselors he suspects of altering the transcripts, but a teacher has lodged a complaint against former counselor Geraldine Gordon. Gordon has denied changing any grades.

In addition to grade changes, some course titles were changed, allowing a few students to take the same course twice and earn double credit.

“I still maintain that no one did anything maliciously, and (the grade changing) was one of those things that happened to evolve over a period of time,” Seal said. The practice began in the mid-1980s, when the school first offered students the pass-fail option to encourage them to take more difficult math courses without jeopardizing their grade-point averages.

During Monday’s meeting, Brea resident Karen Vega criticized the district for its “longstanding practice of unilateral grade changes.”

“I am deeply concerned as a parent that this sends a message to our students that the end justifies the means--that cutting corners is the name of the game and that a little fudging to improve Johnny’s GPA so that he can get into that competitive university is not all that bad,” said Vega, who works at Western High School in Anaheim.