Students of a prestigious specialized high school in New York City have allegedly cheated during their time of remote learning. According to the New York Post, approximately 79% of last year's seniors at Stuyvesant high school have admitted to cheating to some degree while taking classes at home.
The New York Post spoke to an unnamed graduate from the school, who said taking classes at home has made cheating easier.
"What was there to stop you from just looking up an answer?" the graduate asked. "You were on your own; there was no one watching. It's kind of obvious."
New York Post reports that the school's newspaper, The Spectator, spoke with several students at the school who have also confirmed that learning at home has made cutting corners extremely easy for the students.
"A lot of people didn't actually learn as much last year because of how easy it was to cheat on things," a sophomore said. "which is sort of sad."
Funny. I had a few college classmates from here and they told me the cheating and grade inflation there was out of control… way back in the 1990s.
Some things never change, I guess.https://t.co/MNaDhRP1iq
— Tommy Victory (@TommyVictoryNY) February 2, 2022
According to the publication, a teacher at Stuyvesant admitted that faculty members are aware that students are practicing dishonest acts during remote learning.
"This is a competitive place," the teacher said. "These are the most competitive kids in the city in most cases. So I think it was inevitable that some students did things they shouldn't have. Let's put it like that."
Stuyvesant high school takes pride in only accepting students who have achieved top scores on the Specialized High School Admission Examination. As a result, founded in 1904, the school has produced four Nobel Prize winners and ranks among the top public high schools in the country.
In other Stuyvesant-related news, students staged a walkout last month to demand online education and safer classrooms in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to AM New York, on Jan. 11, three Stuyvesant juniors created social media accounts to organize the citywide walkout. Rifah Saba, 17, Cruz Warshaw, and Samantha Farrow, both 16, uploaded their first post on Friday, Jan. 7, promoting the protest. However, the students did not receive the support they were looking for until Brooklyn Technical High School students helped spread the news.
The news outlet reports that Warshaw disagreed with the decision by Mayor Eric Adams to keep schools open due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases among teachers and students. She joined Saba and Farrow in the walkout after discussing the rise of COVID cases with her mother.
"When Cruz had asked me to be a part of this, my dad had COVID, but I was still forced to come to school," Saba said. "I thought that was ridiculous because I could be asymptomatic and infect other people. So I got involved."
Farrow also had a family member contract the virus, and she also was forced to attend classes.
"I felt really hopeless at the time because we are the people who have to go to school and risk catching COVID-19 and bring it back to our families," Farrow said. "We don't have a say as to whether we could go back to school or if we had other options."
In response to the walkout, the NYC Department of Education (DOE) released a statement saying that nothing is more important than the health and safety of the students.
"We understand the concerns of our school communities during this crisis and wholeheartedly support civic engagement among New York City students. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our school communities, and we've doubled in-school testing and deployed 5 million rapid tests to quickly identify cases, stop transmission, and safely keep schools open. Student voice is key, and we'll continue to listen to and work closely with those most impacted by our decisions — our students."
