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Principal Rick Fleming said it means
more for students to do their best and
honest work, in regards to long-term
effects.
“What we’re trying to get across to
students is that when and if you do cheat,
you are only cheating yourself,” Fleming
said. “The content you are missing,
although you may get a decent grade in
the class and your GPA is high, when you
hit the next level of rigor, whether that be
the next level of math, whether it’s here at
West Shore or at college, you are cheating
yourself out of content that needs to be
mastered. At some point, it’s going to catch
up with you. You may get away with it
today, you may get away with it tomorrow,
but you’re not going to get away with it at
some point in the future when you have
to demonstrate those competencies and
those skills necessary for completing that
next level of [a] difficult subject matter.”
According to Gustafik, cheating violates
West Shore’s goal of “academic excellence.”
“If [e-learners] cannot get good grades
or good test scores, then they shouldn’t
be in West Shore, as they can’t handle
what they need to do so they can succeed
morally,” Gustafik said.
Cheating yields psychological
implications, according to Smith.
“The way our brains works is that we
need to see information a few times to
develop a new schema,” Smith said. “The
more you exercise that schema, the more
organized your brain gets; thus creating
a network of tightly organized networks
that can quickly retrieve information
and knowledge. By not exercising your
brain, you’re not learning, you’re not
allowing your brain to organize itself into
those networks, so down the line you are
actually hurting your own knowledge
base.”
While teachers have to keep an eye on
their students for dishonest completion
of tasks, they do assume the best of
each individual first until the trust is
potentially lost, according to Fleming.
Teachers continue to hold students to high
standards because they believe they can
meet them through perseverance, with full
confidence that they can achieve academic
success using their own skill set.
“I would say [it is] our accelerated
graduation requirements and what we
require of students from an academic
standpoint, as well as the Senior Project
that holds our students to a higher
standard in terms of what we expect,”
Fleming said. “By being held to a higher
standard, and having the majority of
their time taken up either doing work
or preparing for college or things like
that, I think [those things] set us apart
individually between us and some
comprehensive schools about the focus
on the future of our students and their
personal intrinsic focus as well.”
WESTSHOREROAR.COM / ROAR I 9