They’re in lockdown mode.
In the wake of an embarrassing and widespread cheating scandal, administrators at the city’s top high school are taking drastic measures to clean things up — including barring students from even discussing tests after the fact, students said.
Stuyvesant HS — considered the best of the city’s nine entrance-exam schools — is also requiring that students get notes from parents to use laptops or tablets during class hours.
While some students and teachers welcomed the change, others said the new academic-honesty policy — which students were compelled to sign for the first time this year — goes too far.
They said teachers have been verbally forbidding them from the common practice of comparing answers to difficult questions after an exam.
“Discussing answers helps us understand what we got wrong and to understand concepts better,” said 15-year-old sophomore, Leon Frajmard.
Some students said that they’ve been finding ways around the limitations on laptop and tablet use, but that it was an unnecessary bureaucratic hassle.
“It’s annoying,” said 14-year-old Felicia Lee. “It’s just kind of tedious.”
The changes came after more than 90 students were caught sharing answers to state Regents exams in June by using cellphones.
One student was caught texting photos of answers to a long list of classmates by then-Principal Stanley Teitel — whom students said got tipped off about the scheme ahead of time.
Since then, 66 students have been suspended for as many as 10 days.
Teitel retired over the summer amid a Department of Education probe into why it took the school nearly a week to notify the agency about the cheating.
His replacement, Jie Zhang, has made fighting cheating a top priority.
Junior Sam Davis, 16, called the changes “necessary,” while conceding, “Our school is just under pressure to make it look like they’re doing something after the cheating scandal.”
Other students said cheating was an outgrowth of a hypercompetitive environment, and questioned whether an academic-honesty policy alone would be enough.
“I don’t agree with it,” said freshman Luke Stocker, 14. “The reason there was a cheating scandal in the first place is because it’s such a competitive environment.”
But at least one teacher applauded Zhang’s reforms.
“The school suffered” from Teitel’s “laissez-faire attitude and total disregard for upholding ethical and academic values. The school operated in a total vortex, devoid of sense and sensibility,” the teacher said. “Ms. Zhang is doing an excellent job as she moves our school out of the morass of the past. She is cleaning house!”