MCPS debates cheating policy

MCPS is reassessing current academic dishonesty regulations in response to a cheating incident involving the Walt Whitman High School SGA President.

The incident revealed that current MCPS policy does not explicitly address the consequences of cheating. This aspect of the policy led to controversy at Whitman because many community members felt that the principal lacked authority to adequately discipline the SGA president for cheating.

On Oct 25, Community Superintendent Frank Stetson announced that a committee will develop proposals to present to the Montgomery County Board of Education (BOE) for an optional countywide honor code that would give principals more power to make disciplinary decisions for cheating offenses. The honor code would include a clause in school SGA constitutions dictating mandatory consequences for violations of the code, according to Whitman SGA Treasurer Hani Jarawan. The clause would eliminate the ambiguities present in the current policy that caused much of the controversy at Whitman.

Calls for policy reform came in the aftermath of a Whitman student assembly vote to reject recommendations made by Whitman Principal Jerome Marco to remove the Whitman SGA president, senior Austin Lavin, from office for cheating last June on the Modern World History final exam. Some community members were outraged that Lavin remained in office because the principal did not have authority to remove him.

Blair's recent experience with a removal of an SGA president stands in contrast with Whitman's. In October 2000, Principal Phillip Gainous removed then-SGA president Anthony Muzzatti from office after suspending him for "mooning" the Damascus High School field hockey team.

Unlike the Whitman constitution, which does not give the school principal full authority to remove an SGA officer, section 13 of the Blair SGA constitution authorizes the principal to do so.

Whitman social studies teacher Bob Mathis, a former Blair teacher, believes that Blair's SGA constitution could serve as a model for the Whitman constitution. "If you accept the premise that the principal should have the authority to discipline certain students, then Whitman has something to learn from Blair," he said.

Current MCPS regulations prohibit the abridgement of SGA constitutions unless they violate county law or policy. Since each school develops its own constitution, some, such as Whitman, limit a principal's ability to remove student government officers from office. MCPS policy also provides that students who cheat on a final exam will fail only the exam and not the course.

After Lavin was caught cheating, Marco initially concluded that Lavin should fail the course and should also be suspended from his position as SGA president. But Marco, with advice from Stetson, subsequently backed down, following county policy and failing Lavin for the exam only and deferring the question of whether to remove Lavin from office to the Whitman SGA. On Sept 14, the SGA General Assembly voted 51 to 19 to retain Lavin as president.

A Whitman committee on academic integrity will revise the school's student handbook's treatment of cheating by students to include consequences for those in leadership positions. Whitman Assistant Principal Alan Goodwin, who chairs the committee, believes that Lavin will have a influential role in the construction of a new integrity standard. "As president of the SGA, Austin Lavin will most likely lead the review discussion," he said.