Pens scratch against paper as the clock ticks down. Five minutes left. Five minutes before they fail their test. Their head spins and eyes blur as they stare at the blank page. They can already envision the look on their parents’ face when their grade comes out.

Desperate, a freshman student — who asked that their name not be used — reaches over to tap their lab partner’s shoulder. The teacher, lost in a stack of tests, doesn’t notice a thing. It would take half a second. No one would ever know.

They know cheating is wrong, but that is not enough to stop them.

And their situation is not unique.

With rising academic pressure and advancements in artificial intelligence reshaping education, upholding academic integrity has become a growing concern. In a Feb. 19 Campanile optin Schoology survey with 69 student respondents across all grade levels, 65% of students said they have cheated and 81% of them said they have seen others cheat, including using artificial intelligence, copying answers or sharing information before a test.

But math department Instructional Lead Natalie Docktor said cheating is not a new issue.

“It’s expected that kids cheat, sadly, when they get stressed over grades,” Docktor said. “Who knows what motivates them. But it happens in all the classes, and I think all the teachers are trying to take steps to alleviate it like collecting cell phones, separating desks and different (test) versions.”

Christopher Bell, career technical education instructional lead and computer science teacher, said cheating undermines the purpose of school.

“Anytime someone cheats, they have an issue where they’re depriving themselves of knowledge,” Bell said. “We’re all about helping people gain knowledge here.”

For many students, the pressure to succeed is overwhelming. An anonymous freshman said the expectation to excel academically — from parents, peers or students themselves — pushes students to make difficult choices.

“People who cheat are often desperate people who find themselves in a very stressful situation,” the freshman said. “They can’t deal with the moralities at the moment. They don’t even think of it. Imagine a sleep-deprived teen, struggling in their classes, in a stressful situation because they have a test the next day, and they just can’t get a bad grade so that their parents don’t get angry or for their own sense of self worth. So they turn to the only possible solution in their eyes.”

Because of this, an anonymous senior said cheating is a rational response to the cutthroat academic environment.

“People have to do what they have to do,” the senior said. “Maybe if we didn’t have any high stakes tests that make kids stressed, kids wouldn’t feel the need to cheat.”

AP Environmental Science Teacher Nicole Loomis agrees.

“Academic integrity has always been a challenge, especially for highly competitive students who are under a lot of pressure from either their parents, themselves or their friend group,” Loomis said. “They feel like if they don’t get an A, they aren’t going to be able to have a successful life, which is not true.”

Still, Loomis said cheating in her class can lead to long-term consequences.

“When I write a college recommendation, they ask about your integrity,” Loomis said. “If I’ve caught you cheating, I need to give you the lowest mark. People don’t necessarily realize it at the moment, but that could end up on your college application.”

Although AP Psychology teacher Christopher Farina agrees that a competitive school environment can contribute to the prevalence of cheating, he also said the problem is more systemic.

“(There is) a very strong valuation on the outcome as opposed to the process,” Farina said. “I think in general, high schoolers are struggling to see, ‘Why is it important for me to build these skills? Why can’t I just focus on getting the grade that I want?’”

But for Docktor, the problem is inherently a social one.

“What kind of person do you want to be?” Docktor said. “Because school is about learning … (if ) you want to be a person of integrity, you’re not going to feel good about cheating.”

And for science department Instructional Lead and AP Chemistry teacher Aparna Sankararaman, it is academic integrity that should influence students’ moral compass.

“What concerns me more than knowledge retention is the ethical impact of cheating,” Sankararaman said. “If a student gets away with cheating for years, they might develop an attitude of ‘I can get away with anything.’ In the real world, dishonesty can lead to serious consequences, like losing a job. The bigger lesson isn’t just about academic integrity but about preparing students for life beyond school.”

But for Nadine Jefferson, a supervisor in the Testing Center, student entitlement is the root of cheating.

“Students feel they have a right to do whatever … ‘If I get caught, I get caught. If I don’t, then I think I’m getting myself ahead,’” Jefferson said.

Regardless of the cause, cheating not only impacts the student but also slows down the whole class. Bell said when students get caught, teachers have to talk to administrators and often hold student-parent conferences.

“It brings in hours of additional work that then harms students in other ways,” Bell said. “Every time there are students that are caught cheating, it affects the entire classroom because the teacher now has to do a whole lot more work.”

Since the rise of generative AI like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, students have increasingly used the tool to complete assignments, shortcut homework, and even write essays.

While AI can be used to accelerate learning, Farina said the staff have had growing concerns about students using the tool inappropriately.

“There has been demand among a lot of teachers,” Farina said. “How do we catch students that are using AI in ways they shouldn’t be, and how do we deter students from using AI in ways they shouldn’t be in the first place?”

According to the Campanile’s Schoology poll, nearly 44% of students reported using AI to brainstorm ideas while 27.5% said they have used AI to generate text before modifying its output.

English teacher Hunter Reardon said the advent of easilyaccessible AI has led to an increase in cheating.

“I think (cheating) has gone up from almost never to slightly more often than that,” Reardon said. “The reasons that a student might try to cheat haven’t changed, though. It really just comes down to the tools that are available that make it easier.”

In response to students’ use of AI to cheat, Reardon said he has returned many assignments to paper as a preemptive measure.

“The goal in an English class is to help students learn how to write and how to think critically about what they’re reading,” Reardon said. “Because I do so much on paper in my classes, I think I might have less AI use on my assignments versus what I’ve heard from some other colleagues.”

Beyond English, Bell said the nature of some classes makes it harder for students to cheat with AI.

“Some assignments are more easily done with AI,” Bell said. “(AP Computer Science Principles) is block based. You’re not going to get that from ChatGPT or Gemini. So it makes it a little bit easier (for teachers) in some cases, but we’re not immune to it at all.”

Sankaraman also said the use of AI doesn’t concern her much in her chemistry class.

“In AP Chemistry, many of the concepts require deep understanding, and AI tends to reinforce common misconceptions,” Sankaraman said. “Since I don’t grade for grammar or phrasing, AI use for writing clarity doesn’t concern me much.”

Farina also said if a teacher knows their students well, cheating through AI is relatively easy to catch.

“It’s pretty obvious when a student submits something that was generated by AI,” Farina said. “It just doesn’t sound like the interactions that you’ve been having with them for weeks and months on end.”

And although there are AI detection tools available to teachers, Sankaraman said she worries about unfairly accusing and penalizing students.

“It’s difficult to regulate AI use because there aren’t reliable tools to detect it consistently,” Sankaraman said. “There are too many false positives.”

But the threat of detection has not deterred students. Farina said AI has permanently changed the academic landscape despite attempts to curb inappropriate use.

“Since ChatGPT came around, there’s been a spike in the number of academic dishonesty cases that I’ve been dealing with every single year,” Farina said. “The inappropriate use of AI is still just a really big temptation.”

According to the Paly Student Handbook, cheating “is a form of academic dishonesty in which an individual acts dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage on an assignment, project or test, thus undermining the integrity of an assignment or exam.” The handbook says this includes giving or receiving verbal information about a test, using AI to complete schoolwork and collaborating with other students without teacher authorization, among other things.

However, the policies regarding academic integrity can vary across departments, teachers and even assignments within a class.

Farina said for a first offense, he adheres to the district guidelines.

“It goes up through admin and parents have to be contacted,” Farina said. “If it’s a formative assignment, they just have to redo it. If it’s a summative assignment, then they get no lower than 50% of the grade taken away, and they also have to redo the assignment.”

Sankararaman said her approach is based on assuming student innocence. 

“Every student starts the year with my trust, and if they violate it, we have a conversation,” Sankararaman said. “I don’t enter the school year with a list of expectations for punishment. If I encounter cheating, I handle it based on context and severity. For example, glancing at someone’s test might be an innocent mistake, while taking a photo of a test is a serious violation.” 

Docktor said she uses a more laissez-faire approach to proctoring assessments because she thinks cheating carries its own inherent consequences.

“I don’t make it a big priority for me to be their monitor,” Docktor said. “I think kids have integrity or they don’t. They (choose) if they want to live up to that integrity.”

Farina also said the severity of his cheating policies can vary from assignment to assignment.

“On one assignment, it may just be a creative exercise, in which case, use AI, have some fun,” Farina said. “Another time, I’m trying to assess everything that you’ve learned about the ability to generate ideas, to organize ideas, to express those ideas and then to edit it into a final format. I want to see that whole process from you.”

However, based on the Campanile survey, policies to prevent cheating may not necessarily be effective. The poll showed that only 7% of students who have cheated have been caught. 

Docktor, who has been teaching at Paly for 37 years, isn’t surprised.

“I still feel a lot of cheating is happening under the radar,” Docktor said. “I’ve caught some blatant cheating, and I’m sure a lot of cheating gets by.”

To minimize cheating, Loomis said she has used a variety of methods including separating desks and having different test versions. However, students still try to find workarounds.

“Sometimes, students will just look at the paper next to them, and sometimes they’ll talk to people in a previous class about what’s on the test,” Loomis said. “Sometimes people have tried to come in with a crib sheet that has notes on it or has answers on it.”

As methods of student cheating change over time, Loomis said teachers must constantly work to develop new ways to counter cheating.

“The biggest impact that I think students really feel is that they’re getting a zero on that assignment, and that’s impacting their grade,” Loomis said.

Loomis also said randomized questions help prevent students from finding the answers beforehand.

“With the questions jumbled and the answer choices jumbled and drawing from a test bank that has more questions than they’re actually going to answer, it’s a way to randomize it a bit more,” Loomis said.

Meanwhile, Bell said teachers can also prevent cheating through project-based assignments, which forces students to work creatively.

“But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be cheating,” Bell said. “(Students refer) to past people’s work or friends’ work, depending on the course.”

Bell said when students get caught, teachers have to talk to administrators and often hold student-parent conferences.

“It brings in hours of additional work that then harms students in other ways,” Bell said. “Every time there are students that are caught cheating, it affects the entire classroom because the teacher now has to do a whole lot more work.”

And Farina said moving away from high-stakes assignments and towards ones with multiple opportunities can decrease student stress, taking away the desire to cheat.

“You can make an attempt, and if you don’t get a grade that you like, then you get to take another attempt,” Farina said. “Maybe you get a B, C or D on that paper when you first do it, but you will have an opportunity to revise it with feedback. The only incentive (to cheat) is just that it saves you time and the criticism that you’re gonna get.”

Loomis said she agreed that a mindset shift could bring long term change, especially as it relates to college admissions.

“The idea that everybody needs to go to one of the top 25 schools is not realistic,” Loomis said. “It’s better to go to a school that is a good fit for you and your goals.”

And the anonymous senior said focusing only on the numbers is detrimental to teens’ mental health.

“We could fix the system with less emphasis on grades,” the senior said. “We’re teenagers. Our prefrontal cortexes are not finished developing. This is not the right way to teach students. You have to put more on the learning and less on the numbers.”

To best combat cheating, an anonymous sophomore said they think students need to rethink the way they manage their academic responsibilities.

“If students were properly taught how to manage their time, study effectively and choose their course difficulty according to their level, there would hardly be any reason to cheat,” the sophomore said.

However, the anonymous senior said cheating might be an unsolvable problem.

“Maybe there’s no way to fix cheating,” the senior said. “You can’t incentivize students in any way except for punishment. There has to be a better way than giving people value based on how well they do on a test and making that their defining feature.”

One way students could lessen the temptation to cheat, Bell said, is if they would learn to ask for support when they need it.

“Do what you can right now and get that knowledge filled in,” Bell said. “Once you start cheating, your knowledge has now got gaps and holes, which means it’s going to be harder to dig yourself out.”

But the anonymous senior said pressures to succeed academically, especially at Paly, often overshadow any other moral priorities.

“(Paly) is a very competitive school and many students aim for top colleges,” the senior said. “Parents push their kids so hard that sometimes it feels like if you bring home a B, they won’t love you the same — and a lot of time, that’s the harsh truth.”

ABOUT ANONYMOUS SOURCES: While The Campanile tries to limit its use of anonymous sources, due to potential repercussions from cheating, all the students interviewed for this story agreed to be interviewed only if their names weren’t used.