Students affiliated with MVHS Model U.N. accessed unsecured classrooms and stole test materials during the South Bay MUN conference, prompting concerns over academic integrity and school security. Graphic | Yixuan (Joyce) Li, Zaid Naqvi and Canva
During the South Bay Model United Nations Conference on April 5, several students affiliated with the Model U.N. club snuck into MVHS science classrooms in the lower B building, which are all connected via a back corridor, whose doors were unlocked throughout the conference. They went through teachers’ files, stole copies and took photos of tests used in Biology, AP Biology, AP Physics 1 and AP Environmental Science classes.
Conference presentations were hosted primarily in the science classrooms of the lower B building, with overseers — usually multiple Model U.N. officers — supervising each room. Model U.N. adviser and social studies teacher Pete Pelkey did not monitor the rooms and didn’t see students enter the back corridor. Pelkey explained that he avoided supervising every classroom in the B building in order to not disrupt students’ presentations. He says this approach of supervision has worked in the past, and he doesn’t plan to increase stringency going forward.
Student A, one of the students who entered the back rooms, describes the situation as “spontaneous.” He says that students took advantage of easy accessibility to the tests for personal academic gain. According to him, the group involved was not a tight-knit friend group, but rather “a wide range of students from a diverse set of backgrounds and grade levels.”
“I think it was a thrill to have access to classrooms and to be unsupervised,” Student A said. “The prospect of having access to such lucrative things was the driving force of the incident.”
According to Student A, several members of the club were called into the office and interviewed by administration regarding the incident. Only one officer from MVHS was present at the event. Model U.N. President and senior Charlotte Zhou, although not present at the event, expressed disappointment in the students’ actions, citing their violation of the academic code and detrimental effects on the club’s reputation.
“It’s not a reflection of the club at all,” Zhou said. “From my understanding, our conference was just a catalyst for them to carry out these actions. It’s unfortunate that everyone is referring to this incident as the Model U.N. incident, when, in reality, we have no association with any of their actions. It’s just that they happened to be part of the club and used the club to their advantage.”
Pelkey emphasizes that the SBMUN Conference is a crucial fundraiser for the club. Homestead High School is scheduled to host next year’s event, and Pelkey says that HHS may host it again the following year if MVHS administration imposes restrictions on Model U.N. activities due to the incident.
“The conference was very successful for the people that participated in it, and to have this incident happen really hurt the club because my officers have worked very hard to make this successful,” Pelkey said. “We don’t want a bad rep to follow the club, because they’ve done a really good job. I’m very pleased with my leadership team.”
Biology and Physiology teacher Lora Lerner, who found out about the incident from administration, believes the club bears responsibility for what happened. She recalls feeling betrayed by the breach of trust.
“It was like a gut punch,” Lerner said. “It feels like somebody broke into my house and was in my personal stuff. It’s a weight to carry, wondering ‘Can I really trust them?’ about every student who I think I might be able to trust. It makes that burden a little bit heavier to know that people would go to those lengths. It wasn’t just out of convenience, like peeking at the person next to them on a test. It was a very deliberate effort to be dishonest, which is very disappointing.”
Lerner says that many science teachers reuse tests from year to year, so the breach means those tests will need to be rewritten, adding hours of extra work for teachers over the summer. While doors between science classrooms had been left unlocked so custodians could access rooms easily, teachers weren’t notified by the club that students would be in the rooms over the weekend, so they left file cabinets containing tests unlocked.
Students are typically not allowed in the lower science building outside of class time, according to Lerner, with the exception of parent-supervised Science Olympiad students. However, security will be increased due to the incident; for example, she says student tutors will no longer be allowed to wander in the back corridor outside of their TA period.
Lerner points out that if this were to happen at a college, the students would be expelled for trespassing. Student A says punishments were varied, but that he “was very fortunate to have the administration be very understanding and not be that harsh in terms of his punishment.”
Administration declined to comment on students’ punishments to preserve their privacy.
As the conversation around consequences continues, some club leaders and faculty have turned their attention to the broader factors that may have influenced the students’ decisions. Zhou and her fellow Model U.N. officers agree that the students involved should be barred from holding leadership positions in the club, and she believes that they should be removed from the club entirely. However, Zhou, Student A and Lerner agree that the academic culture of MVHS that prioritizes grades over integrity and learning is the root of the issue.
“It’s frustrating because we can’t make people have integrity,” Lerner said. “The culture here at MVHS is that it’s OK to be dishonest if you can get a higher grade. We as teachers can encourage people by emphasizing, ‘Hey, your integrity actually matters.’ We can try to scare them and say, ‘You’ll get caught eventually,’ even though some won’t.
But in the end, I can’t control people’s integrity, and they’re going to make their own decisions about whether they’re willing to do something dishonest because they think they’re gonna get something out of it.”
Student A believes that the situation reveals deeper flaws in the academic culture of MVHS. In addition to widespread cheating, he points out that recent events like shooting threats reflect similar dishonesty to escape academic effort and pressure.
“MVHS classes are hard, and it’s generally not easy to do well,” Student A said. “It’s extremely tempting to cheat, because you can study for hours and still do badly on tests. And since cheating is so widespread, the activities that are in the gray zone, like sharing answers between passing periods, are really common. It’s rare to get caught, and there is a really high reward.”
However, Student A claims that, if he could go back and change his actions, he would. He says he was hesitant to enter the science rooms and participate, describing himself as “not a generally dishonest person.”
“I would stay out of those classrooms and not do anything if I could,” Student A said. “This has caused me so much stress, and it’s just been a bad situation. I think I enjoyed my life more before this happened.”