An external investigation found that thousands of South Bend, Indiana, high school students had their grades changed in an effort to help underperforming students graduate. The investigation found that South Bend high schoolers were passing classes they had only spent a couple of hours in. 

Investigators found that at least 2,500 grades were changed in all of the district’s high schools, which touts a graduation rate of 86.17%, over the course of three years. 

Recommended Stories

• House committee requests interview with Northwestern president on campus antisemitism
• Brian Kemp signs school safety bill into law after lawmakers dropped controversial database
• Harvard caves to Trump DEI demand as lawsuit drags on

More than a quarter of grades in the school district, 27%, are suspected to have been changed in one year, and in one high school alone, 67% of grades were reportedly changed. 

The investigation found that many of these students did not do the coursework and spent minimal time, in some instances just a couple of hours in the classroom, but still received a passing grade. 

The report found 11,812 instances of a student receiving credit after spending less than two hours in a semester-long course.

There were 409 reported instances where a student received credit for a course they dropped.  

South Bend Community School Cooperation authorized the probe, and the results were presented during a Monday school board meeting by investigators Tim Corbett and Joe Speybroeck, board attorney Pete Agostino, and auditor Dianne Froehlke. 

Froehlke said the report reveals that the school district is “trying to move students towards graduation that may not otherwise be eligible.”

HOW LINDA MCMAHON COULD WRESTLE THE TEACHERS UNIONS AS TRUMP’S EDUCATION SECRETARY

“They are the people who go to class every day in the high school, go through the (rigorous) curriculum,” school board Trustee Mark Costello said during the meeting. “Some of them advance higher than others, but they stick with it, and they get that diploma … But what about the students that all we were thinking about was numbers to graduate?”

The Washington Examiner reached out to SBCSC for comment.