Students use cell phones to cheat on tests

NORFOLK, Va., July 15 (UPI) -- Cheating has gone high-tech at a Catholic high school in Virginia where students allegedly used cell phones to share answers to a test, the principal says.

At least 30 of the 100 seniors at Bishop Sullivan High School used cell phones cradled near their pockets to cheat on a test measuring their knowledge of modern forms of government, Principal Dennis Price told The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot.

The test had been given to several class sections over the course of a day near the end of the school year, and students shared answers through text messages, Price said.

He said a Bishop Sullivan student alerted administrators to widespread cheating.

The principal said the cheating disappointed him. But, he added: "They're still kids. They do dumb things. The objective is that they learn now."

The cheating will be brought up at student and staff orientations in August, Price said.

Using cell phones to cheat apparently is rampant.

Among more than 800 middle and high school students with cell phones, more than a third admitted using them to cheat in school, a survey found. The survey, commissioned by the San Francisco non-profit Common Sense Media, also found less than half the students considered texting to cheat on a test a serious offense.