I had several 10th grade students in class who very obviously cheated on their most recent test.

They can’t even cheat smart. Both of them raised their hand immediately after receiving the test and stated loudly to the whole room, “I don’t know this stuff.” “What does this mean?” “You never taught me this.” and so on…. Yet miraculously, both turn in tests with all of the information completely correct.

It continues to boggle my mind about how they cheat, since I have them spaced across the entire room and they don’t have access to their phones and I pace up and down the aisles constantly, but they somehow do it.

I confronted both students with my suspicions and gave them the opportunity to come clean, which of course, they chose to deny.

So I created a pop quiz for the next class. I even went as far as giving everyone a different version (30 different quizzes – I may be crazy, but I wanted to nail these 2 liars to the wall). It was 3 questions exactly off of the test. Anyone who passed the test would be finished in under 2 minutes. I wanted to catch them in their lie. So I gave the quiz and what do you know – everyone in the class got a 100% except for the 2 cheaters – who both received 0’s. You would think this would be enough for a confession when I confront them and ask how it’s possible to get the exact same questions wrong 1 day later that they just got 100% correct the day before. They of course, continue to deny it.

And administration does nothing about cheaters. They get a “student conference” in the discipline office and then walk off without a care in the world.