The expectations of doing well in school and getting into a good college is an enormous stress put on students starting at a very young age. Even in elementary school, students are taught to maintain good grades and as years go on, more and more pressure is put on students to do well. Competition between students at Central to do well has increased and those who are below average academically are afraid of being left behind when it comes time to apply to colleges.  They’re constantly finding ways to try to stay in the running and to not fall behind their fellow students. Unfortunately, one of the biggest techniques is also one of the worst: cheating.

Most students enrolled in high schools nationwide give into the temptation to cheat to boost exam scores. According to surveys in the U.S News and World Report, 75% of college students admitted to cheating during high school, and of those people, 95% said that they were never caught. Unfortunately, the rise in cheating among high school students over the last decade is due to changes in the definition of “academic success.”

In most cases, grades (rather than education and learning) have become the major focus of many Central students. “Grades nowadays don’t reflect what students get out of the class,” Sophomore Mehow Podstawski said. “I could understand a class completely and get a B, while a girl who sits right next to me can just do whatever she needs to do get an A, and not understand anything about what’s going on”.

Many teachers see this happening in their classes and they believe that cheating ultimately hurts the student who is committing the infraction. “Dishonesty is the worst crime you can commit to yourself,” German teacher Dana Heimlich said. “Not only are you stealing from other people, but you are manipulating them as well”.

One of the most targets of cheating, homework, is often done simply to finish the work. However, homework is often used as a tool to enforce what was taught during class. Latin teacher Phil Cipolla said, “When a student decides against doing his or her work, it is disrespectful towards the teacher, because teachers are putting in the effort to make their students succeed”.

But even this disrespect has done little to deter academic dishonesty because students care more about the grade they receive than the quality of education they get. Many believe that they are forced to do whatever they need to in order to get better grades and stay ahead of the game, even if it involves risking serious consequences.

In order to combat the temptation to cheat, Hunterdon Central has a strict academic integrity policy which every student is required to sign in the beginning of the year. In the Student Handbook, the academic conduct policy covers all branches of cheating: plagiarism, cheating on tests, cheating on homework, and submitting someone else’s work. In a case of academic dishonesty, a teacher fills out a report, and passes bit down to an administrator. Then that student will take a grade of zero for that assignment and the student’s name will be entered in an academic misconduct file, along with having a report of misconduct.

However, even with Central’s own serious academic policy, students are under the impression that teachers rarely ever catch students, and therefore continue to cheat. Podstawski said, “There are over 3000 people in our school, what are the chances of me getting caught?”  Teachers are given the burden of being responsible for scoping out students who are cheating, but when responsible for a class of 15 or more, it is hard to keep track of all activity.

Brandi Swavely, a biology teacher suggested, “to keep students from cheating, teachers need to be vigilant. Also, consistency needs to be enforced in classrooms; a student shouldn’t be able to cheat on a test in one block, and not be able to in another because of different teachers.”

With new technology and gadgets coming out every month, it is hard for schools nationwide to come up with ways to stop students from creating new tactics for cheating. Students can send each other homework digitally for those to copy, along with text messages during class. Many websites provide essays that students can submit as their own, while others even claim to write a sufficient paper for you for a certain fee.

No matter what happens over the years, it is inevitable that there are always going to be people who cheat and get away with it. It is important to make sure that that number is kept at a minimum so that schools remain as institutions of learning, and not places to cut corners.

Pam Fischer, a leader of the Teen Safe Driving Coalition, sent the along the following info:

The New Jersey Teen Safe Driving Coalition will be hosting its first statewide Teen Safe Driving Summit, GDL4U…Good Driving for Life, July 15 at Rutgers University’s (Busch Student Center) in Piscataway. The event is free to teens and parents/advisors are also welcome. I’ve attached the promotional flyer and am asking for your help in spreading the word to your students as well as through the Garden State Scholastic Press Association. We’d love to see information about this in student produced media (let me know if there’s anything else I can and/or should send you). Additionally, we’d welcome student coverage of the summit.

We’re very excited about the summit and believe that teens will learn a lot — particularly from their peers (all workshops will be teen led) — about the proven principles of GDL. Our goal is to help them understand that GDL is about building good driving skills that will benefit them throughout their lives. Teens should register online at www.ugotbrains.com/registration.

Leave a comment if you are interested in this.

We will also be using twitter to provide live updates from Fall Press Day. Be sure to include the hashtag #fallpressday in your tweets.

Browse some of the posts to get an idea of the possibilities. All of the posts were credited to me (Tom McHale) when we switched to WordPress, but most were originally posted by students. Of course, the success of this site depends on the participation of student journalists creating and responding to frequently updated content. In the past we have asked classes to host the site for a month using these Posting Types as a guide, but at this point, I’m asking you to respond to a very simple question: How can you make the Student Center work for you Please leave a comment with suggestions and consider joining the site? by e-mailing Tom McHale at tmchale@hcrhs.k12.nj.us   You can also follow the Student Center on Twitter and get alerted of new content by adding the GSSPA Facebook Page to your favorites.

Please leave a comment on some of the viewpoints that were expressed in the video.

Greetings students!

 Thomas McHale, an English teacher at Hunterdon Central Regional High School, who is passionate about good writing, has asked me to provide five tips for feature writing. I’ve been a feature writer most of my professional life, and these following tips have served me well. I hope you find them useful.

1) Show, don’t tell.

Anyone who reads my stories will see that they rely heavily on telling details and quotes. My goal is always to create an image in the mind’s eye of the reader, to let him see. I do this by trying to create scenes, by observing the subjects of my stories doing what it is they love. The best quotes often come not from direct interview questions, but from observing the subject of my story interacting with others. Let’s focus on the story at my website, www.michaelvitez.com under “my favorites” titled Penn’s Greatest Success Story. It is about a custodian named Dan Harrell. He is in charge of the Palestra basketball arena, and also had spent ten years working on his undergraduate degree and was about to graduate in his 50s. I chose to focus the story around his busiest and most exciting day — the last home game of the basketball season — against Princeton. You can see all of my five rules put to good use in that story. For this particular rule — show, don’t tell — I point to the ending of the story. I let the reader see. This is my favorite ending of any story I’ve ever written.  

If the link to the story doesn’t work for any reason, read it in a Word document by clicking on the link below.

The Greatest Penn Success Story.doc

2) Spend the time.

This is bedrock and fundamental. Too many feature writers in America today are in a hurry, and don’t appreciate the value of spending the time. Well, you won’t get the scene you need, or the details, or the quotes, to make your story powerful and the best it can be if you don’t spend the time. Good writing depends on good reporting. When you spend the time, gather the great quotes and telling details, gain a certain level of confidence, then you can write with voice and passion and authority. I repeat: good writing depends on good reporting and good reporting takes time. Going back to the story on Dan Harrell, the custodian _ I waited a few weeks to do the story, because I wanted to base it on the day of the Penn-Princeton game. I was there by 5 a.m. when he arrived to sweep and mop the Palestra floor, and I was with him all day, even when he took a break to do homework, and back at night for the men’s and women’s games. I was with him probably 14 hours that day, and it was worth it. Had I not been with him earlier in the day, when he was cleaning the locker rooms, and putting little cards into the lockers of the seniors, I wouldn’t have understood the impact of what I saw later that night, which led to my favorite ending of all time.  A good feature writer will only use his best stuff, and throw away the rest. Feature writing in one sense is very inefficient — you’re spending a lot of time — but the outcome should make it worthwhile. This is all relative. Some features require months of work, others all you have is a few hours. But don’t take the shortcut.

3) Prepare in advance.

This is important for several reasons. It is insulting to the people or person you are writing about if you show up and are clueless about the subject of your story. He isn’t going to like you, trust you, open up to you or take you seriously if you haven’t done your homework in advance. So read up or do some interviews in advance if you can. Also, in a feature story like my profile of Dan Harrell, I knew that I was going to make the day of the Penn-Princeton game the basis of my narrative, the heart of my story. So that day I wanted mostly to observe, see him in action, stay out of my own way. Of course I asked him questions throughout the day, but these were mainly in response to things I saw him do or heard him say. Well in advance of the big day, I interviewed his wife and daughters by phone, interviewed a couple of his professors, and sat down with him to talk about his course work, etc. You can see how I wove all that stuff seamlessly into the story. By the way, I thought the beauty of this story was that he wasn’t just a custodian but a student, and that’s part of what made this profile so good and different, I thought it was important to focus on that aspect. In fact, the editor wanted me to start the story with something from his academic life. All of which leads me to rule 4.

4) Follow your gut

The world will knock you down. Editors will say your ideas are stupid. You will struggle in the middle of your stories, wondering why you chose this idea, uncertain how it will end up. Have faith in your idea. Follow your instincts. And here is a corallary to following your gut: be curious about the world. A good feature writer must be interested in the world, see things and find wonder in things, be willing to talk to anyone, ask questions that might seem embarrassing but are necessary. Essentially what I’m trying to say is have no fear. Pursue what you think is a great idea. Because if you love the idea, your passion will come through and there is a good chance the reader will love your story, too. But if you are bored with your story, not interested in it, how do you expect the reader to care? So don’t be embarrassed or intimated. Go for it!

5 Write soon, and tell the story to your keyboard first.

This is a practical tip I learned the hard way early in my career. When I was starting out in journalism, i covered cops and courts in Portsmouth, Va.  I was a suburban kid and this was a poor Southern city — a completely new experience for me. I’d often come back to the office filled with wonder and awe at what I’d seen. My editor would ask me about my story, and I’d tell him with all my enthusiasm and detail. Then I would write the story, and he’d inevitably be disappointed, crushed. The story I had written in now way resembled the story I had just told him. I learned that I tell it best when I tell it first. And editors and readers respond best the first time they hear it — so let them read it first!  When I come back from a story, or, for instance, after I’d spend the day and night with Dan Harrell at that Penn-Princeton game, either late that night, or first thing in the morning, before speaking to anyone, I sat down at the keyboard and wrote. I might write stream of conscious, just getting it down in story form, and go back and check the quote and details from my notes once I got the basic draft down. When I’m doing stories that I’ll work on for months, I also write scenes and critical moments right away, while fresh, when the story is still pouring from my fingertips. If you wait a week, or maybe a few days, or even a few hours, the memory and enthusaism will fade. This is not necessarily true for news stories, or complicated budget stories. Talk to your editor, figure out the news angle that’s best, or make sure you understand the critical components. But for scenes and feature moments, tell the story to your keyboard first — and soon!

Hope this helped you all.

Best,

Michael Vitez

staff writer, The Philadelphia Inquirer 

author, Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope and Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps.

www.michaelvitez.com

winner, 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism

I hope that you take advantage of the Tinker anniversary and of Scholastic Journalism Week to help those outside the journalism world – parents, teachers, administrators, classmates – understand that students have a valuable, constructive role to play in the dialogue about the future of their community and their country.  And I hope the lesson of Mary Beth Tinker gives you daily inspiration as you go about the work of journalism – you can listen to her story by clicking here.  

Please remember that you are not alone in valuing student journalism and student rights, and that the Student Press Law Center (www.splc.org) is always here to advise and assist you if you feel that your rights have been violated.

Here at Hunterdon Central Regional High School a majority of students give consent to be randomly drug tested if they participate in clubs, sports, and/or activities. If students are under suspicion of drug use they are allowed to be drug and alcohol tested. Consequences for testing positive for drugs and/or alcohol are as follows: for first offense temporary suspension of activities,  five in school suspensions, five drug and alcohol education classes, and five student assistant counselor meetings.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) states that drug testing programs are ineffective and inaccurate. There are many ways to beat the tests and many people will go out of their way to make sure they have a clean drug and alcohol test.

The ACLU Drug Policy Litigation Project (DPLP) believes such drug testing policies to be both invasive and counter-productive. Involvement in extra-curricular activities has been shown to be one of the most sure-fire ways to keep kids out of trouble.

What do you think?  How does your school handle student drug and alcohol use?  Do you think it is effective?  Has a story ever been done on it in the school paper?