THEHAWKEYE
Hebron High School. 4207 Plano Parkway, Carrollton, TX. www.hebronhawkeye.com. Twitter: @hebronhawkeye. Room 1315.
May 29, 2018
Bond referendum security measures moved up page 2
THE LOOP
Volume 16, Issue 3
Preview of the Spring Game page 3
SPOTLIGHT IMMIGRATION
S
May 31: Senior Day at Six Flags Jun. 7: Last Day of School Jun. 10: Graduation - 6 p.m.
W
WO WO T RL N E E
D
Concert - 7p.m.
BE T
UPCOMING EVENTS
May 30: Band Spring Concert - 7 p.m. May 31: Choir Spring Dessert
Things to do over the summer page 6
TEACHER SPOTLIGHT After the passing of government teacher Timothy Palone, ESL teacher Ginny Evans decided to create a scholarship for seniors in Palone’s memory. The scholarship will be through the LISD Education Foundation (LEF), and the requirements for earning the scholarship are still being determined. “Timothy Palone was a dear friend and a well respected colleague here at Hebron,” Evans said. “Palone believed education is the great equalizer and would want to help others with their educational journey just as he had. To quote Nelson Mandela, ‘education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ This was the belief of Timothy Palone.” After multiple discussions with principal Scot Finch, Evans plans to continue working with the LEF program to establish the criteria for the scholarship, and is accepting donations to go toward the fund. All donations can be made to the LEF foundation. - Sydney Gray/Sports Editor
Students discuss experience immigrating to America
NEWS
Cheating the System YASMIN HAQ
BY THE
NUMBERS
865 seniors are expected to graduate The top five colleges graduates will be attending are*:
Collin College UTD Texas A&M UT Austin UNT * Information via Student Council
Illustration by Yasmin Haq
DESIGN EDITOR
Academic dishonesty is an ongoing part of the education system in America as cheating scandals have been uncovered around the nation in colleges such as Harvard University in 2012 or Ohio State University in 2016, and high schools such as Stuyvesant High School in New York. At Hebron, out of 106 students surveyed at random during block lunch at both campuses, 63.2 percent admitted to cheating on a test, quiz or form of assessment. In a national study, 76 percent of high school students confessed to cheating. Several teachers agreed that reasons for cheating involve different sources of pressure including parents, class rank, grades and most notably, college. “There’s this overriding desire to get an A,” AP U.S. history teacher Travis Zuber said. “And I don’t know if that’s because of the system we’ve built up with GPA, the competition, colleges with the financial aid and stuff like that. I don’t know where the pressure’s coming from.” The majority of teachers interviewed and students polled agreed more cheat-
ing occurs in higher level classes due to rising competition. When asked which class level they were most likely to cheat in, 47.2 percent of students selected AP classes, 34 percent selected Pre-AP, 25.5 percent said regular and 31.1 percent selected all. “I’ve been teaching for 26 years,” English II teacher Kimberly Nickerson said. “I’ve taught on level, below level, AP, Pre-AP, 6-12, and in my experience, most of my plagiarizers and cheaters are in the advanced classes.” Several Pre-AP and AP teachers interviewed agreed that having grades and/ or class rank impact the rate of academic dishonesty and that the emphasis on having the highest grades or GPA for college has hindered the learning experience of the student. “[Academic dishonesty won’t stop] until we either get rid of grades, or we instill an atmosphere in our school where grades aren’t that important, where we don’t give out A/B honor [rolls] every nine weeks,” AP human geography teacher Kelley Ferguson said. “If you’re giving out A/B honor [rolls] and giving out class rank, you’re telling kids that grades do matter, but they don’t.” The majority of students surveyed linked increasing ranks to academic dis-
honesty through personal experience and reasons such as pressure to keep or climb up in class rank. Those who did not think rank affected cheating said it was more of a morality issue. “[Cheating] shouldn’t be a thing,” senior Anthony Allam said. “People should try to do their own work. School is there to test your performance, not other people’s, so it should be your work that goes into your grades.” A few students justified cheating through the lack of a suitable teacher, too much work or the grading system. However, less than 30 percent of students said it was OK to cheat or that it depended on the circumstances in the survey. The other 70 percent said cheating was not OK. When asked why, several of the responses stated that it ruins the learning experience or it is unfair. “I feel like I can relate to it a little bit,” sophomore Zoya Niazi. “[I] haven’t cheated, but I get [overworked]. But everybody goes through that, so you’re not the only one. If you’re cheating it’s still unfair. If you’re cheating out of stress, well there’s other people stressed and not cheating. They found a different solution.”
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