HOUSTON, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Hundreds of senior students at a southeast Houston high school were caught cheating on their final English exam last month, school officials said.
Teachers and administrators at Clear Lake High School became suspicious students were cheating when about a third of seniors gave the same answers on their final English exam, KPRC-TV, Houston, reported Thursday.
"We believe about 200 students engaged in cheating on the final exam for the English 4 test," said Elaina Polsen, director of communication for Clear Lake ISD.
The school district gave all 600 seniors the option to either retake the test, or have their final grade for the semester calculated without the exam.
"We are certainly not brushing this under the rug," said Polsen. "We are looking at our internal processes and making improvements where we need to to make sure this does not happen again."
Parents of students at the school received an e-mail about the two options.
"I was a little disappointed that students would cheat, but also that they would wait until the day before school started to let the kids know they're going to have to repeat the test," said Lisa Maxwell-Malik, whose son is a senior at Clear Lake. "They're going to have to study and take something when they thought they were [done with] the first semester."
Disciplinary action against students caught cheating has not yet been determined because of the large number of students involved.
