Colleges Suspect Forged Grades

Two students from Glendale Community College have been expelled and nine from El Camino College have been suspended this week amid campus investigations into allegedly forged grade transcripts, authorities said Tuesday.

Twenty other Glendale students remain under investigation for allegedly handing in forged transcripts of courses taken at other campuses such as Los Angeles Trade Tech College, said Ann Ransford, a Glendale College spokeswoman.

Suspicions were raised when a staffer who routinely reviews Glendale student records before graduation flagged a questionable transcript. It showed a student receiving Ds and Fs at Glendale, but A’s and Bs from courses reported from what turned out to be a phony Trade Tech document, she said.

“There was a great deviation in the grades” the student received between the two colleges, Ransford said. “Apparently, [the transcript] looked fairly official, but the clue was the grades.”

Citing privacy rules, Ransford declined to name the students expelled or under investigation.

At El Camino College in Torrance, a spokeswoman said the nine suspensions came after authorities found the students allegedly had submitted false transcripts from L.A. Trade Tech and College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita.

El Camino spokeswoman Ann M. Garten said college officials have now verified that the students did not take the courses listed on the transcripts, and are pursuing both further disciplinary procedures and a criminal investigation.

Garten said an El Camino counselor first became aware of the problem when one of the now-suspended students submitted transcripts appearing to show that he had taken six units last summer at each of three community colleges: El Camino, Trade Tech and College of the Canyons.

“That threw up a red flag for her. That’s a pretty heavy load anyway but with the travel time between the colleges, that would have been hard to do,” Garten said. El Camino admissions officials have changed their transcript policy to accept only those records sent directly from colleges, Garten said. All of the suspicious transcripts were hand-delivered to the campus by students. A wider review is underway of the records of all students scheduled to graduate next month.

Los Angeles Trade Tech is investigating the forged transcripts, and officials are looking into ways to improve the security of transcripts, said Marcy Drummond, the college’s acting vice president of academic affairs.

A break-in occurred at the college’s admissions office earlier this academic year, Drummond said, adding that she does not know whether official transcript stationery was stolen.

El Camino College Police Chief Michael D’Amico said he expects to present the results of his investigation to the district attorney’s office in about 10 days.