Wife of football coach charged in grade tampering

Wife of football coach charged in grade tampering


Updated 11-23-2011

Antioch High School teacher accused of grade tampering has quit

Please read complete article at link below:

http://www.suntimes.com/9028758-417/antioch-high-school-teacher-accused-of-grade-tampering-has-quit.html
Computer tracking leads to arrest of football coach's wife

By John Keilman, Chicago Tribune reporter

8:00 AM CST, November 22, 2011

A sharp-eyed Antioch Community High School teacher who noticed that a student's grade had been inexplicably changed sparked an investigation that ended with a fellow educator being charged with tampering with computer records.

Sara Glashagel, 27, a special education teacher who is the wife of Antioch's head football coach, allegedly got hold of an administrative password and inflated the grades for 64 students — 41 of them football players, authorities said.

But School District 117 officials were able to follow a trail in their computer system to figure out whose grades had been altered, and the marks were changed back within a few days, said Co-superintendent Mike Nekritz. No academically ineligible athletes ever took the field, he said.

Authorities charged Glashagel on Friday with tampering with computer records, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. She has been placed on administrative leave until the school board can decide her fate, which will likely occur after the Thanksgiving holiday, Nekritz said.

Her husband, Brian Glashagel, was not charged in the incident and is not being investigated by the district, Nekritz said.

"At this point, there's (no evidence) that says it was anybody but Sara," Nekritz said.

Antioch police say grades were first changed Sept. 15. Nekritz said that within a day, a teacher noticed changes in her electronic grade book that she didn't think she had made. She notified administrators, thinking she might have entered something incorrectly, and they began to look into it.

They soon found other grade changes that had been made via a computer outside the district's network, Nekritz said. Further alterations were made Sept. 17, 18, 20 and 21, police said, but school officials said they were able to undo the changes and strengthen computer security within a few days.

The district sent the IP address of the computer allegedly used to make the changes to the Antioch police, who obtained a subpoena to uncover the identity of the person associated with that computer, Nekritz said. The findings came back last week and pointed at Sara Glashagel, said Antioch police Chief Craig Somerville.

He said that while most of the students whose grades were changed were football players, many had no eligibility issues; other students did not participate in any extracurricular activities.

"Our understanding is that some changes were made to make it less obvious, so it wasn't football players only," Somerville said.

Students in the district cannot participate in sports if their grade point average is less than 1.5, Nekritz said. If their GPA is between 1.5 and 2.0, they get three weeks of probation and extra help to pull up their marks.

Nekritz said that during the time the grade changes were made, no varsity football players were on the ineligible list. Three underclassmen were, he said, but the changes didn't boost their GPAs enough to make them eligible to play.

"Our preliminary discussions with Antioch indicate that no ineligible players participated in any contests as a result of this situation," said Marty Hickman of the Illinois High School Association, which governs interscholastic sports. "We will continue to monitor the situation and work accordingly in the event that new information is brought to light."

Antioch finished the football season with an 8-2 record, losing in the first round of the playoffs.

Somerville said Glashagel admitted changing the grades but did not offer a reason. She also said her husband had nothing to do with it, the police chief said. Sara and Brian Glashagel could not be reached for comment Monday.

Nekritz said teachers normally do not have access to each other's grade books and that the changes had been made using an administrative password. He didn't know how Sara Glashagel allegedly got hold of the password, but he said that after the security breach was discovered, all of the district's passwords were changed and made more complex.

He added that the grade alterations didn't lower anyone's rightful mark, and they affected only eligibility for extracurricular competitions. They did not appear on transcripts or permanent records.

Please read complete article at link below:


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-antioch-teacher-charged-20111122,0,2283486.story

Editor's note: Is Lake County IL corrupt and rotten to the core? First Election violations and now school corruption.   Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster,  ProbateSharks.com