Students slyly open a new tab on Google and cut and paste the essay question into the search bar. It’s so easy, so accessible, a perfect claim statement and analysis comes right onto the screen in a matter of seconds. 

Teachers are struggling to keep students from cheating on tests and essays this year due to most assessments being completed online. 

After an incident in one of the freshman English classes in which many students used the internet to strengthen their benchmark essays, administration advised teachers to bring up the issue of academic integrity in their connections classes. Classes discussed the consequences of academic integrity and how it can affect one’s future and reputation. 

Margaret Gomez, a math and sophomore connections teacher at Staples, informed her connections students on the seriousness of the matter. 

“I can only control so much in this environment at home, but these are important years where two letters against academic integrity in your file can create a zero for the entire marking period,” Gomez said.

Students were shocked when informed that colleges can see their record and that only two accounts of cheating could greatly impact their ability to get into college. Gomez was taken aback by how many students did not know the detrimental effects of cheating. 

Savannah Girling ’23 added to the discussion in her connections class by explaining what her English teacher had told her English class about the freshman incident.

“All the classes had the same prompt for freshman English honors and they all googled it and found the prompt online,” Girling  said. “They all used the same claim and the same evidence too which made it easy for the teachers to see who cheated.”

Teachers also have turnitin.com at their disposal, a program that focuses on academic integrity

“My teacher uses Turnitin to make sure that no one uses each other’s work in English, and it has been working so far,” Max Vexler ’23 said.

Cailen Geller ’22 thought that talking about academic integrity in her connections class really helped students understand the issue more.

“I don’t think people really thought that you could get in a lot of trouble, Geller said,” and after talking about it kids realized, especially junior year, it could really hurt you academically.”