Ventura Board OKs Districtwide Penalties for Cheating by Students

Students prone to cheating may want to make a New Year’s resolution to change their test-taking habits.

Starting as early as January, a high school student caught cheating four times may be transferred to an alternative campus, such as Pacific High School, under a new academic honesty policy.

It took more than 1 1/2 years to develop, but Ventura Unified School District trustees voted unanimously Tuesday night to pass the districtwide policy, which outlines sanctions for students who plagiarize, use crib notes, glance at fellow students’ assignments or help a buddy cheat.

“I think [the policy] sets a very high standard that lets everyone know what is expected,” trustee John Walker said. “If you instill in students while they are in school that cheating is not right, it will save them from grief later on.”

Under the policy, consequences for students who cheat in kindergarten through middle school range from counseling to an F grade on an assignment, as well as parental notification at each grade level. Sanctions for high school students, however, are more severe and took the most time to develop.

Initial offenses will result in counseling, F grades on assignments, parental notification and two- to five-day suspensions. On the fourth offense, a cheating high school student may be transferred by administrators to an alternative school, where students with discipline problems are frequently sent.

“Primary-grade kids often don’t realize what cheating is,” said John Weiss, the teachers’ union president, explaining why sanctions are less punitive in earlier grade levels. But cheating during high school calls for more “dire consequences,” Weiss said, adding that grades in high school help determine whether and where a student attends college.

College counselors said sending a student to a continuation school could significantly lower the student’s chances of going to a four-year college directly from high school.

Universities require students to have completed a certain set of courses in high school, some which may not be available at all alternative schools, Dennis Swindall, a Ventura High School counselor, said in an earlier interview.

“In order to go from high school to college, a student must come from a traditional comprehensive high school as opposed to a continuation school,” he said, adding that community colleges would be more open to accepting such students.

The teachers’ union decided to drop a provision that involved students in advanced placement or honors courses who were caught cheating a third time. That provision would have moved such students into college prep or regular classes.

The change was in response to complaints from teachers at Buena High School who feared that standard classes would become a dumping ground for misbehaving honors students, Weiss said.

According to educators involved in starting the project, the impetus for the cheating policy was to provide all teachers with a consistent set of rules on how to handle students who cheat, as well as reinforce in students the idea that honesty is important.

Administrators said they hoped to avoid incidents such as the one at Ventura High School last year when English teacher Sue McEwen filed a lawsuit against a student after a cheating incident. She received much support from educators, who said more had to be done to make students understand that cheating is serious. But others blasted McEwen, saying the punishment did not fit the offense.

District officials say the new academic honesty policy may be launched in January, when most students take their semester-ending exams. January is the month that Supt. Joseph Spirito has designated as “Honesty Month” as part of his character-traits program to instill core values in the schools.

“[January] would be a great time to promote the issue of honesty, ‘Do your own work and don’t look at other papers,’ ” Spirito said.