3 Palos Verdes Honors Students Arrested for Breaking Into Classrooms in Elaborate Grade-Changing, Test-Stealing Plot

Test via Shutterstock

Three juniors at Palos Verdes High School were arrested yesterday for their role in an elaborate grade-changing, test-stealing plot.

The honors students were looking for nothing more than an "A-" in the grade books of their four teachers (and a little cash from selling test), but now they have a criminal record and will likely be expelled from school, according to the Daily Breeze.

"These kids would have been going to a very good college without any academic dishonesty. That's the sad part about it," Principal Nick Stephany told the Daily Breeze.

The three students managed to pick the lock of the janitors' closet after-hours so they could get the master key to the teachers' classrooms. Once they broke into the classrooms, they were able to attach keyloggers to their teachers' computers that would allow the students to figure out the teachers' passwords.

Armed with the teachers' passwords, the students would return to the classrooms another night to hack into their teachers' computers to change their grades and steal tests that they would use for themselves or sometimes sell to other students. They wouldn't tweak their grades too much—just enough to bump their grades up to an "A-". Two other students had their grades changed, too. They did this as many as 20 times without getting caught. One student came forward to the administration to tell them what was going on, and that's when teachers noticed the problems with grade-keeping and the scandal unraveled.

"They were very bright kids," Principal Nick Stephany said. "They were in AP and honors classes. Am I shocked? Yeah. Definitely by the extent of it. None of these kids had any real trouble before."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@laist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Emma G. Gallegos in News on January 27, 2012 9:40 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Paul

They weren't smart at all really. They used USB based keyloggers? That requires them to go back and retrieve it - and not to mention isn't a frigging EXTRA device attached to a computer the owner didn't put on themselves.

If they were smart, they'd install a back door which could be accessed remotely - and not from their home but from different locations each time.

Even more idiotic is trying to profit off of it, the more people you involve, the greater the chances for one jack ass to sell you out.

Idiots - they deserve to get caught. They probably got the idea from ehow.com and bragged to the wrong person.

custom essays

cool post!

Eddie Aguirre

I guess growing up in a privileged family and going to the best schools isn't enough for these kids.

sygyzy

What grades were they getting that the Honors students needed to tweak to an A-? I can understand if it was C+ students but I am betting they were B students with very strict parents.

Eddie Aguirre

They probably grew up with parent who broke / bent every rule to get ahead. The kids have been trained well, they'd do great in a high level corporate management position.

Midnight Fapper

Right, 'cause everyone who is successful is a cheater/liar/criminal.

sygyzy

From my experience, the kids that do really well in school aren't children of criminals and cheats. They are the ones of parents who really put a lot of pressure on the kids. From the article it seems clear these kids were not previously troublemakers and were already headed to good colleges, before this incident.

exbaytriate

<rare sincerity="">if these kids put in as much effort at learning the material as they did in their elaborate ruse, they would have gotten A+'s.</rare>

exbaytriate

as an academic i'm always looking out for cheaters because they are always there. as a racist, i want to know what the ethnicity of these kids was to see if it falls into my cheater profiling.

sygyzy

I think cheating, especially in an upper-class school like this will be difficult to racially profile. While I am against the idea, I will play along in this case. What type of school/neighborhood do you work in? Your environmental factors are probably different.

exbaytriate

i'm a university type and teach science classes. without a doubt there is one group of students who (obviously and unrepentantly) cheat more than others. these same students are also in the greek system ... SURPRISE!

sygyzy

I think I know what you are getting at. I certainly understand and recognize stereotypes but as far as university cheating goes, I don't think there's a clear case of one race doing it more than others. In the very least, I guess it's split between two races. Anyway, I have to remind you that this is a very unusual case. This isn't frat boys cheating on your Physics class to get a passing score. This is a case of apparently smart kids cheating to get an even better score.

exbaytriate

the assertion that frat boys are not smart kids is a poor assumption. frequently they are one and the same. many frats have the top students who use the frat as padding for their resume in an attempt to get into US medical schools.

these students who cheat their way through college to only fail the MCATs are the same ones who come from these privileged schools. they typically have the lowest SAT/highest familial income ratio of the student body. moreover, they also are, more frequently than not, not caucasian, black nor latino.

sygyzy

I realize we are not trying to offend anyone but all this usage of generalities and vagueness has me confused! Are you saying that rich Asian frat boys who did poorly on their SAT scores (how do you have access to this as a TA/professor?) are cheating in your science classes?

exbaytriate

1) the statistics for students attending universities (SAT score, mean family income, ethnicity and how they are binned) are all available from each university.

2) re: who's cheating: i didn't say it; you did!

3) from anecdotal evidence, these pre-med cheaters can be found at almost any university.

4) if i was a sociologist, i might try to plot the data and see if the correlation is > 0.8.