Several Hudson County high school students are facing charges after they allegedly hacked into a school computer to change grades.
Jersey City school officials say that there were at least two instances of illegal grade-changing at Dickinson High School. Jersey City Board of Education President Sudhan Thomas says that officials discovered the first incident in June right before graduation.
“I happen to think this is the tip of a large iceberg,” he says. “Two [of the students] had to come back for a supplemental program to complete graduation.
Thomas says that the third student never bothered to come back to summer school. That student did not graduate and the district says that they don’t know where the student is.
Thomas says that he found out about the June incident last week – just two days before four more students were arrested and charged for changing grades during this school year.
"The Board should've been informed. We could've come up with policies and oversight measures last year that could've prevented the second round,” he says.
Jersey City police say that this latest round of grade-changing may impact as many as 10 students. Police say that it was done using software called Keystrokes which logs keystrokes on a computer allowing students to gain a teacher's username and password.
The names of the students arrested have not been released due to their ages, which officials say are between 15 and 17 years old.
Thomas says that he plans on conducting his own investigation to see how long this has been going on. He says that he wants to know if the grade changes helped any students graduate or obtain scholarships.