The e-mail listed three websites: www.answers.com, www.calculateme.com and www.myalgebra.com.
When Gurule wrote back, she copied Werkmeister, the assistant principal, saying, "I believe you can block these by working with your technology person at your school...During the learning process having the students access these sites may be turned into an opportunity, but only if they are blocked from the tests during testing."
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Pat Salas former North High School counselor, says credit recovery doesn't work like it should.
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But the websites don't appear to be teaching tools. One, www.myalgebra.com, spits out answers when users type in algebra problems. When the students figured this out, the former instructor says, they would copy and paste the questions into the site. Many Apex tests feature multiple-choice answers, and once the website solved the problem, he says, the students would simply click on the correct answer.
Cheryl Vedoe, the CEO of Apex Learning, says Apex courses feature several safeguards to protect against cheating, including randomized test questions so no two tests are exactly the same, a "closed book" feature that blocks students from going back into the lessons while taking a test and a feature that prevents students from unlocking the tests themselves. However, she says, "there is a relatively limited amount that Apex can do to prevent students from utilizing the web to go look up answers."
Werkmeister decided not to prevent it, either, and declined to block the sites. "The students will have the opportunity to use those sites," she wrote in an e-mail, "but for the final exam, it must be completed on paper — hard copy — and the students must be monitored..."
This, she reasoned, would allow them to continue to research online about the subjects — from American history to English lit to algebra. "This will cut down on our work and the students can continue to research their answers," Werkmeister continued. "They will have to read them and learn them no matter how they obtain them."
On March 23, Werkmeister called a meeting to clarify what she referred to as "credit recovery issues," according to an e-mail obtained by Westword. Afterward, she sent a summary to the school counselors and credit recovery staff members.
"We have given the students the opportunity to demonstrate success in a failed class by allowing them to take the final exam from Apex," she wrote in the e-mail. "This needs to go through Nancy first," she added, referring to herself.
Apex keeps meticulous records that show when a student logs in, how long they spend on the computer and their grade for each quiz and test. Most courses include six units with six quizzes each, as well as one final exam.
But Werkmeister's e-mail implied that students wouldn't have to complete that coursework or take the quizzes as long as they passed the final exams, which were given only in night school, where Matt Larson, now North's assistant principal for the Engagement Center, oversaw students taking credit recovery courses.
"If the student passes with 80% or better, the student will earn credit for that class," wrote Werkmeister, who declined to comment for this story.
As one current North teacher says, that would be analogous to allowing a student to ditch class all year and then show up for the final and pass the class. "The students are responsible for almost nothing," says the teacher, who asked to remain anonymous. "They get endless chances to test and retest." The effect, the teacher says, is to "artificially raise low grades so the school's numbers look better."
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As time ran out at the end of last year and graduation grew closer, more and more students were allowed to just take the final in a mad dash to grant them credit, according to documents.
"It was crazy last night," Larson wrote on May 7 in an e-mail to the daytime credit recovery staffer. "Admin approved about 12 kids taking the final."
How some of them did it, though, is a mystery.
One student — Ashley — needed two semesters of English to graduate and was enrolled in two Apex classes: British Literature and Composition, Semester 1 and Semester 2. Records show that Ashley spent 29 hours and 13 minutes on Apex from January 19 through May 3 of 2010, in which time she completed nearly all of the Semester 1 coursework, stopping partway through Unit 5. Records show she did no work — zero minutes and zero units completed — on Semester 2.
But on May 4, she was given full credit for British Literature and Composition Semester 2. And on May 5, she was given credit for Semester 1. Her transcript includes this note beside each course: "GRDS FR CREDIT RECOVERY NW." Former staff members say NW stands for Nancy Werkmeister, denoting that she entered the credits.
Four other students' records indicate similar patterns. One senior only made it partway through the coursework for Unit 1 of British Literature yet passed the final with an 82 percent. The other managed to make it halfway through Unit 4 before passing the final with a 96 percent.
Another student spent the month of April working on a geometry course. He made it partway through Unit 2 before passing the final with an 82 in early May.
The most egregious example, one staffer says, is a student who did zero minutes of coursework in British Literature but passed the final with an 80 percent. After taking the test, the student told him the exam had been about "something British. I just wrote anything." The student graduated last year.
