Jersey City High School Students Charged In Cheating Scandal

JERSEY CITY, NJ — Four students at Dickinson High School in Jersey City figured out how to hack into the school's online grading system and changed their grades from failing to passing, school officials said.

Last Friday, Feb. 22, four students at Dickinson High School were arrested by Jersey City police.

School administration at Dickinson first became aware of grade changing last June when they flagged a few grades that had been changed from failing to passing. Police were notified of the incident shortly afterward.

Then in September of 2018, teachers, guidance counselors and school administration began finding other incidents of changed grades, triggering a broader investigation, said Maryann Dickar, a spokeswoman for the Jersey City public school system.

The Jersey City school IT department worked with Jersey City police to track usage of the system to figure out who was changing the grades.

The IT staff then isolated suspicious logins and traced them to the arrested students. Further investigation revealed that the students used key tracking software to steal teacher user IDs and passwords; this type of software can record what you are typing onto your keyboard. The students used those username/passwords to access the system and change their grades, the district says.

The district is still reviewing student records to determine if more students may have been involved and to ensure that all students’ grades are accurate.

At this time, it appears that between five and 10 students had grades changed, but this is still being investigated, Dickar said. Teachers have changed their passwords and have been directed to use private computers not accessible to students, when accessing the Student Information System.

The president of the Jersey City BOE seemed upset the board was not notified there was a police investigation going for the past six months at the school.

“The Board was made aware last week that the JCPD had started an investigation last year, in June (2018) in reference to possible grade changes," said Sudhan Thomas, president of the Jersey City BOE. "What is disturbing is that neither the parents nor the Board was made aware about an active police investigation. The Board has requested that the district administration inform the Board of all incidents involving law enforcement moving forward. We were informed that the four students used a sophisticated hacking process that tracks key strokes, which is alarming."