This article was originally published in Tennessee Lookout.
Allegations of grade manipulation at an Anderson County high school have brought down a popular principal, the head football coach, two teachers and three counselors.
Meanwhile, local education leaders have declined to answer questions about how 1,500 grades might have changed during the last school year at Clinton High, a 1,200-student school northwest of Knoxville.
At a packed school board meeting last week, parents and other community members showed up to address the board about the growing scandal, but never got the chance.
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The meeting was abruptly adjourned less than 15 minutes into the session, with no opportunity for public comment — a potential violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act.
“The Clinton community deserves an investigation and review that is open and transparent,” said Worrick Robinson IV, an attorney representing former Clinton High School Principal Daniel Jenkins.
Jenkins resigned in May after being accused of ordering teachers to change grades — allegations he has since denied.
The Anderson County grading scandal centers on so-called credit repair — an option to give struggling students a chance to redo their studies, stay in school and graduate on time.
The online programs, purchased by state school boards, have been the subject of controversy in recent years because of the lack of oversight by state education officials and the ease with which grades can be manipulated, said Carolyn Heinrich, a professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University.
These programs allow students to retake courses and then take multiple tests that assess their mastery of a course, module by module.
But module grades can be easily changed by teachers who can manually overwrite the grades or put students in ‘test only’ mode, allowing them to skip computer instruction and go straight to test taking.
Heinrich said her research, which focused on the Edgenuity credit repair program also used by Anderson County, showed that children in test mode can easily cheat and rely on Google for answers.
That’s partly what happened at Clinton High, according to Rachel Jones, a teacher who administered the credit repair program and was the source of many of the allegations involving other staff members.
Jones, who has since been fired, told school officials that she was responsible for 485 score changes “many of which were skipped questions until the desired student grade was achieved,” according to an “allegation of dismissal” document obtained by the Lookout.
She also said students cheated while using the testing software by looking up answers on their phones.
Jones, who did not respond to the Lookout’s request for comment, told county education officials that she changed the grades at the request of Jenkins, the principal and school counselors, the dismissal document said.
Jones also accused Darrel Keith, who was Clinton High’s football coach for four years until his contract was not renewed last month because of Jones’ allegations.
Jones said the coach told her to “replace the grades” of a football player who was in danger of failing.
Like Jenkins, Keith has denied wrongdoing.
“Yes, it is unfortunate when unproven allegations can ruin someone’s image,” Keith said via text message. Keith called the allegations against him “hearsay” and said he did not have the power to change a student’s grades.
A second Clinton teacher who administered the credit repair program admitted to changing 1,009 grades over a four-month period, according to disciplinary documents.
The instructor, Clay Turpin, also blamed Jenkins and other school counselors.
“Although he claimed that he was never instructed… to change student scores, Turpin again recalled that Dan Jenkins made it clear that he wanted the credit recovery students’ grades to be above 60 so that they could leave the courses/school.”
Turpin said he often had students on the credit repair software in “test-only” mode, allowing them to skip lengthy online instructions and then Google answers to their tests and quizzes.
For example, one student completed an entire geometry course in one hour and 46 minutes, the disciplinary documents show.
Turpin could not be reached for comment.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. If you have any questions, please contact editor Holly McCall: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.
