Prison may be the new detention hall for nine Hanover High School seniors facing criminal charges after they allegedly stole final exams in June. Last week, the local prosecutor offered a letter of immunity to the students that would have allowed them to cooperate with the school without judicial consequence, but the letter was rejected by several of the students' lawyers.
Between 44 and 60 students in total have been connected with the scheme, either by helping to determine the answers to the stolen exams or using answers computed by others, according to the Valley News, which obtained the information from sources other than Hanover Police. The average size of a Hanover High graduating class is approximately 200.
At least three of the nine Hanover High students facing criminal charges have parents affiliated with Dartmouth, according to College and public records. Of the three, two have parents who are professors or instructors.
Hanover Police was first notified of the problem on June 19 when school officials, after teachers began to suspect an infraction, enlisted its help in investigating the incidents.
The investigation revealed that the scam dates back to June 13 when the nine students, then juniors, stole math exams from the classroom after school had ended. Four of the nine entered a classroom to take the exams while the others waited outside, serving as "lookouts."
The nine students then worked to calculate the answers to the exams with other students who have not been criminally implicated.
According to the Valley News, word of the stolen tests spread throughout the student body over coming days. Several students asked those involved for copies of the answers.
Subsequently, on June 18, the same nine juniors ran the scheme again, leaving the school this time with chemistry exams.
The four juniors who entered the classrooms on the two occasions have been charged with criminal trespass, while the others were charged with criminal liability for the conduct of another, both class B misdemeanors.
The students' arraignments, following a continuance granted in August, are scheduled to occur between the second week in October and the second week in November.
While the current charges do not carry a penalty of jail time, Jim Kenyon, a Valley News columnist and parent of one of the accused, said that the prosecutor has threatened to increase the charges if the students do not plead guilty.
One of the points of contention regarding the case is whether the nine students broke school property to gain access to the exams. Wayne Gersen, superintendent of the Hanover and Norwich, Vt., school district, has said that the school was "broken into," a claim denied by several parents of the accused.
School sanctions are pending, but eight of the nine students have avoided talking to Hanover High officials on this matter because of the ongoing legal action. The school's penalty for a first offense of cheating is a zero on the assignment, while a second offense results in a zero for the quarter, according to Gersen. The school makes no explicit statement about academic dishonesty regarding its college recommendations, though it may choose to indicate if a student's character is "questionable."
"We have an ethical responsibility, from our guidance counselor's perspective, to disclose any instances of academic dishonesty," Gersen said.
The scandal has garnered national media attention as Hanover residents, students and others have questioned the pervasiveness of cheating at the school and throughout the United States.
"The prevalence of cheating in high schools and colleges is anywhere from 60 percent to 75 percent, so it is not surprising to me that we have a prevalence rate somewhere near that, but from all of the evidence we have we do not have that," Gersen said. "But even if we have half of that we still have a lot."
All of the parents interviewed by The Dartmouth ascribed the cheating in part to the high-pressure atmosphere in Hanover, where many parents are successful and where local graduates have a history of gaining entrance into top-ranked colleges and universities, including Dartmouth. Over 40 percent of Hanover High students who applied to the College over the last four years were accepted, as reported by The Dartmouth in January.
The heart of the controversy lies in the fact that Hanover High contacted police to investigate the cheating situation, rather than handling it as solely an internal matter.
"I see this as an issue of academic integrity that should have been dealt with by the school and not the police," Diane Campbell, mother of one of the accused said.
Gersen responded that he believed police involvement to be justified.
"The reason the police were involved was because the building was broken into," he said. "It didn't have to do with the cheating."
Gersen said the district is currently negotiating with the students' lawyers, most recently about the possibility of a limited letter of immunity.
"The attorneys of the kids were concerned that anything the students said in the dean or principal's office might come back to haunt them in the court of law," he said. "[Prosecutor Chris O'Connor] wrote a letter that would have immunized them from that."
While this first letter was rejected by several of the students' lawyers, a second version is currently being drafted by O'Connor, Gersen said. O'Connor was unavailable for comment at the time this information became available.
The situation is further complicated because of what some of the parents of the accused described as an "abysmal police-kids relationship."
"It is emotionally draining on a community when students and parents have to constantly wonder if the police are trying to catch them for something that in other communities is considered a youthful mistake," Kenyon said.
This tension does not excuse the students' actions, Kenyon added.
"Academic violations should be treated seriously by schools, students and parents," he said. "The students have to take responsibility for making bad errors in judgement, but at the same time when you have this many kids involved in a cheating scandal a community has to ask why."
In an interview with The Dartmouth, Hanover police Chief Nicholas Giaccone responded to the negative characterizations of his department's relationship with high school students.
"Obviously there is a segment of the population that ends up dealing with the police and based on their experience come away with a terrible taste in their mouth, while others come away with the impression that the officer was fair in all aspects of the particular case," he said.
