Never a dull day

Wednesday, 5:53 pm

By Kate

May

31

2006

This morning the lad received a call from a classmate, giving him the heads-up that the Boston Globe might be calling him to interview him over a breaking story. And, sure enough, a reporter from the Boston Globe called while we were out picking up his tux for tomorrow’s senior prom. He hasn’t returned the call yet. First, I wanted to make sure he understands the nature of interviews and how not to dig himself into a great big liable hole.

The incident that found its way to a reporter’s purview was one I mentioned in this blog post. In a nutshell, students caught or suspected of cheating. As it turned out, the lad was cleared of any wrong-doing and he’s fine. But the story takes a bit of an unpleasant turn because the senior class valedictorian was (allegedly) not cleared. Although I don’t know the details, the boy has been ‘punished’ by being prohibited from giving the valedictory at graduation.

So here is the slant the Globe reporter is after...the student cheated in a pretty egregious way, but he paid a relatively small penalty because his family is very, very wealthy and politically connected in these parts. Yet, last year, a student caught cheating and plagiarizing was prohibited from graduating and had to attend summer school before he was given his diploma. He wasn’t from a wealthy and connected family.

Someone wasn’t happy with the results of the inquiry or the penalty handed down to this young man and went to the Boston Globe. And now they are sniffing around.

I asked the lad what he would tell the reporter if they connected. He said that he would tell her that he only knows the details of the story as told to him by his classmates—he and the other lad were both in the same teacher’s class. The teacher didn’t offer any information about who did what. But the lad is clear that something punishable happened or the valedictorian would not have been banned from his valedictory address. The lad said he would like to point out that if there is a problem , it should have been properly addressed by the school administration, not taken to the Globe to be thrashed out. But something in the system failed or broke down and now here we are. If the allegations of cheating and plagiarizing are true, then being banned from giving the valedictory is a small price to pay when compared to what other students have had to pay in the past. But don’t ask the students to verify if the student is guilty or of what. Personally, he doesn’t know and he can’t make make a claim to know. He thinks it’s important that this point should be made.

I think he’ll do fine if he takes the reporter’s call the next time she calls. Or if he calls her back, which he feels inclined to do. Welcome to the politics of life, kiddo.