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After an investigator grilled Principal Kermit Carolina on allegations of transcript tampering at Hillhouse High, his lawyer said grade-altering is a problem at the school — and it’s bigger than you think.
Attorney Mike Jefferson named a new suspect in the probe — a computer system named Tenex. The school’s computer system has a glitch that has erroneously recorded lower grades for an untold number of students, Jefferson said.
Minutes from a Tuesday meeting of the Hillhouse High guidance department indicate that school staff backed up Jefferson’s claim that staff have been having problems with Tenex. Click here to read the minutes.
Jefferson was in the room Wednesday afternoon as attorney Floyd Dugas questioned his client, Principal Carolina, for over three hours about allegations that grades have been improperly altered at Hillhouse High.
Those allegations first surfaced at an emergency meeting of the Board of Education on Dec. 23. At that meeting, Carolina vehemently denied the charges and swung back with a claim that the investigation was a politically motivated witch-hunt launched by a vindictive mayor. Mayor John DeStefano denied that charge.
The board hired Dugas, a Milford attorney, to look into the grade-altering allegations.
On Wednesday afternoon, as Dugas went through the details of the allegations against him, Carolina said he did nothing wrong, according to Jefferson.
The principal also told the investigator that Hillhouse has an ongoing problem with Tenex, the computer system that records and processes grades and transcripts, Jefferson said. Teachers and guidance counselors have reported that the system has been lowering grades by a full letter, Jefferson said.
Jefferson said it’s unclear how many students’ records have been affected by the alleged computer glitch, but it’s likely a large number, including students who have already graduated.
Will Clark, chief operating officer for the Board of Ed, declined to comment on the investigation.
Three Students
Jefferson for the first time recounted the details behind the three cases under investigation. Here’s how he described the three:
One case was already discussed at the emergency meeting of the Board of Ed. It involved a student who had taken a summer course that was improperly coded such that it did not reflect the fact that it was a college-level course. The second case was an identical situation. In both cases, the transcripts were changed — probably sometime in September — to reflect the actual course the students took.
Grades were also changed on the transcripts. It’s unclear who made the grade or the code changes, Jefferson said. It was not Carolina, who doesn’t even have access to the computer system, Jefferson said.
The third case involved a student who had participated in the city’s Youth At Work summer job program. In November, his mother later called the school to say that her son’s school records did not properly credit him for the work. Carolina asked Shirley Love Joyner, the school administrator in charge of guidance, to look into the matter and give the student credit if it was due. That was the last he heard of it, according to Jefferson.
Joyner is the administrator who first brought the allegations of grade-changing to the Board of Ed, according to Jefferson. She did not return a call for comment.
Jefferson said that the system will record what changes have been made and who has made them. So it should be a simple matter to determine who made the changes to the three transcripts on which the allegations are based, he said.
Tenex Trouble
Joyner is also the person who first warned Carolina of trouble with Tenex, according to Jefferson. Tenex has “a system-wide problem” discovered over the summer which causes some grades to “go down a grade,” Jefferson said. Joyner informed Carolina of this in September and he asked her to look into it and fix it, Jefferson said.
The Tenex problem persists as of Jan. 3, when guidance counselors discussed the ongoing problem at a staff meeting. The minutes from the meeting include the following bullet points:
• “[Jennifer] Saucier discussed grading errors on transcripts vs report cards. Final grades on report cards do not always match up with grades on transcripts.
• [Marie] Block gave an update about Tenex and how tenex overrode grades that teachers gave hence the reason for the discrepancies on transcripts and report cards.
• [Dolores] Garcia-Blocker told us not to make any changes at this time but keep a running record of students that we come across that have this issue.”
Jefferson doesn’t have any evidence that Tenex caused grade changes in the three cases under investigation, but he offered it as a possible explanation. “What could have happened is the grade was changed erroneously by the system itself and then if a student made a complaint, the student was given the grade that they earned. That’s where the problem lies.”
Jefferson said Carolina had ordered his staff to fix the system, and said that it’s a problem for the guidance department.
“They’ve been trying to work on it. That’s a guidance issue,” he said. “Kermit has about six or seven administrators in the building. Each one of them has seven or eight areas they have to cover. You’re dealing with a large number of areas that he’s responsible for.”
Looks like the truth is starting to come out.Were are all of you Carolina haters now.I can't hear you.Notice this statement.
Tenex Trouble
Joyner is also the person who first warned Carolina of trouble with Tenex, according to Jefferson. Tenex has "a system-wide problem" discovered over the summer which causes some grades to "go down a grade," Jefferson said. Joyner informed Carolina of this in September and he asked her to look into it and fix it, Jefferson said.
I wonder why she did not return a call for comment.Time to call Kojak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY2reJ9ktRo&feature=related
Or maybe Jim Rockford.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C8EUrtEhfM&feature=related