Samantha Sanderson Off the Record

by Robin Caroll

  “But Mrs. Trees,” one girl with tear tracks down her cheeks said, “my report card shows I got three Ds. My mother won’t believe there’s a problem with the report cards.”

  The principal nodded. “Turn your report card back in.”

  The girl shook her head. “My mother knows we’re supposed to get our report cards today. If I don’t give it to her, she’ll think I’m hiding something.”

  Wow. Sam caught her bottom lip between her top and bottom teeth. Her mom would automatically believe her. Her dad, a detective with the Little Rock Police Department, had more of a suspicious mind, but he would believe his own daughter. Surely if this girl explained it to her mother . . .

  “Hand me your report card and I’ll write a note to your mother,” Mrs. Trees said, holding out her hand.

  The girl let out a long breath and handed her report card to the principal. “Thank you. My mother always wants proof of everything.”

  “Can you make a note on mine too, Mrs. Trees?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mine too?”

  “Yes, I’ll write a note for everyone who needs one.”

  Sam stepped to the right of the forming line. “Mrs. Trees, I’m reporting on the report card errors for the school paper. The bell cut off your statement.”

  The principal stopped writing and glanced at Sam. “Ah, welcome back, Sam.”

  Sam offered a wide smile. She and the principal had an I-kind-of-like-you-but-kind-of-don’t type of relationship. “What would you like to say about the mistakes?”

  “We don’t know what happened just yet. I’ll be contacting the district as soon as I can to have someone look into the issue. Until then, I won’t speculate on what the problem is.” Mrs. Trees handed a report card she’d written on back to an eighth grader Sam knew to be on the football team. She took the next one from the girl standing behind him.

  “Does the problem affect all the report cards?” Sam asked.

  “I can’t say at this time. We simply don’t know.” Mrs. Trees traded report cards again.

  So non-committal. Sam held her iPhone closer to the principal. “Can you tell me the process of how the report cards are run?”

  Mrs. Trees handed back the last report card and gave Sam a weary look. “The system shut down this morning when we first attempted to print the report cards. Then the whole system had to be restarted. The program usually takes an hour or so to generate, then another couple of hours to print.”

  “Who sorts them?” Sam asked.

  Mrs. Trees shook her head. “No one. We can set the system to print the report cards according to any class period. When we had to reboot the system this morning, we requested the report cards print according to seventh period. The envelope labels print in the same manner.”

  Interesting. Sam shifted her iPhone so the microphone faced Mrs. Trees. “Are they checked before they’re put into the envelopes?” The report card envelopes were just plain brown envelopes with the district’s label and the student’s name printed on them.

  “The names are checked. Since we had to reboot and it took the system most of the day to regenerate the report cards and then print them all for nearly fifteen hundred students, we’re lucky we had time to even do that.” She frowned. “Sam, that’s enough. I need to get back to work.” Mrs. Trees turned away from the counter and headed down the hall to her office.

  Sam swiped the touch screen to close the app and dashed back to Mrs. Pape’s room.

  “I was wondering if you were on your way back,” Mrs. Pape said as Sam burst into the classroom and headed to a computer.

  Sam smiled as she accessed the paper’s secure site. “Just give me a minute, and I’ll get my story sent to you for proofing.” She popped her knuckles and let her fingers fly over the keyboard. She didn’t even need to refer to her recording with Mrs. Trees, but that was okay — she mainly wanted it for statement verification if needed. How had Aubrey let this story slip through her fingers and not jump on it herself? She should have at least assigned someone to it. Maybe she was burned out as editor.

  Not Sam. When she became editor, she wouldn’t be that way. She’d make sure every possible news item was at least followed up on, even if she had to cover everything herself.

  Sam glanced at Aubrey’s empty chair behind her desk. I’ll be there soon enough.

  CHAPTER TWO

  So we have no idea what’s going on with the report cards.” Sam stabbed her last French fry with her fork and dunked it in ketchup before shoving it in her mouth. “At least the blog system was working and Mrs. Pape was able to send a post notification to all the students.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mom and Dad said in unison, then smiled at each other.

  Eww. Icky parent affection.

  Sam shuddered and swallowed. “Mrs. Pape said my article was very informative and factual. She said I just keep growing as a journalist.”

  Mom nodded. “I’ll say. You’re doing great. I’m so proud of you, my girl.” She beamed. “You’re a real chip off the old block.” Coming from Mom, that was high praise, especially considering she was an award-winning, nationally recognized journalist.

  Heat spread across Sam’s face, but she didn’t care. She was still riding her happy train, as Dad called her great mood. And why not? Christmas had been amazing. Mom and Dad had given her a new iMac desktop to compliment her MacBook laptop, which was beyond awesome. She’d spent the rest of her break from school playing on it and getting everything set up just so, including installing all her favorite programs.

  Almost as awesome was that Makayla’s parents had let her spend three nights with Sam. Three whole nights where they stayed up way too late, ate way too much popcorn, and had way too much fun together. It’d been the perfect ending to a perfect Christmas break.

  “I’m proud of you too, pumpkin,” Dad added. “You wrote an informative article because you wanted to help kids whose parents might not take the story at face value. Posting about there being a legitimate problem with the report cards probably kept a lot of kids out of trouble.” He grinned. “Kind of like what I do at work.”

  Sam grinned back. “True. I guess I’m a lot like both my parents.”

  Mom leaned over and planted a quick kiss on Dad’s cheek, then rested her head on his shoulder. “We should enjoy the moment, honey. In a couple of years, it will be like the kiss of death for her to admit she’s like us in any way.”

  Eww. Parents kissing.

  Sam grabbed her dishes and took them to the sink where she rinsed her plate and glass before putting them in the dishwasher. Thank goodness Mom was a neat freak and cleaned the kitchen while she cooked, so Sam didn’t have to help clean up a mess. “I’m going to my room, okay?”

  “Sure. Have lots of homework?” Mom lifted her plate and headed into the kitchen.

  “Not a bunch.” Sam skipped down the hall to her bedroom, her dog Chewy on her heels. She slipped inside, shutting the door behind her. Then she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Makayla’s number.

  “Hey, can’t talk long,” Makayla said quickly. “Mom’s in a snit about the grades.”

  “How bad were the mistakes on your report card?” Sam plopped onto her bed, turned on the speaker feature, and set her iPhone on her bedside table. Chewy, her German hunt terrier, jumped up and rolled onto her back. Sam rubbed the dog’s black and brown tummy.

  “It shows I got two Cs. Mom about flipped. I’m glad you got an article up and the e-alert went out so I could show her.”

  “Yeah, I figured some kids would need something to show their parents to get them off their backs.”

  “Even so, Mom tried to call the school but it was either busy, or no one ever answered. What’s going on?”

  Sam pushed up against the headboard, pulled her MacBook onto her lap, and opened it. “I don’t know. Mrs. Trees said she was calling the district office to figure it out.”

  “She doesn’t have any idea what it could be?”

 
; “Not a clue.” Sam dug her fingers into the thick fur on Chewy’s back. “It’s odd, though.”

  “What?”

  “Well, grades were changed, but as far as I know, not all of them were changed. Some grades are right. And I didn’t hear of anyone getting an F.”

  “That is odd. It’s almost like . . . well, almost like the system messed up deliberately.”

  Sam sat upright so quickly she had to snatch her laptop to keep it from slipping off her lap. Chewy jumped off the bed, turned her medium frame around twice, then plopped onto her doggie bed beside Sam’s desk. “Like grade tampering?” Sam could feel the excitement building.

  “Could be, but why would somebody set the system to tamper with everyone’s grades?”

  “Because it would cover up a single incident.”

  “But what good would that do?” Sam could hear the skepticism in Makayla’s voice. “You know once they get the system fixed, all the real grades will be restored.”

  “Maybe not.” Sam adjusted her MacBook screen. “What if someone figured out a way to go into the system and change just one or two grades? They’d need a diversion to get in and change what the teacher actually entered, right?” She typed in electronic grade tampering into the Internet search bar and hit ENTER.

  “Well, that’s possible, sure. But I’m not sure it’d be worth the effort. I mean, why go through all the trouble to change so many grades and not just the one or two?” Makayla asked.

  Sam pulled her scrunchie off her wrist and wrapped her long hair into a loose bun on top of her head. Her “thinking do,” as Mac teasingly called it. “Maybe to avoid getting caught? I mean, after everything’s ironed out and supposedly fixed, if one or two grades are still found to be incorrect, the student can always claim they know nothing and no one would question that, right?”

  “Hmm. You have a point. So you think this isn’t a glitch in the system but a deliberate act connected to grade tampering?”

  “You sound a lot like my dad when you talk that way, Mac.” She clicked on one of the result links from the Internet search. “Listen to this story about a Florida college case,” she read. “Two students allegedly used a keylogger to monitor when instructors used their passwords and usernames to log into the school’s computer system. The students allegedly used that information to access the grading systems and change grades, according to officials. One of the students reportedly changed his grades in over a dozen different classes and the grades of more than fifty students dating back a couple of years. Most students, however, were not aware their grades were changed, according to police.”

  “Wow.”

  Sam nodded, even though her best friend couldn’t see her. “See, even in this instance, they changed a lot of other grades so the changing of one or two of theirs wasn’t so obvious. It makes it harder to prove who’s responsible.”

  “I would never have thought of that.”

  Of course she wouldn’t. Makayla was one of the most honest and good people Sam knew.

  “How did they get caught?” Makayla asked.

  “When a teacher noticed the grades entered in the grading system didn’t match what she had on her gradebook. Apparently, she’s one of the few professors who still keeps an actual written gradebook.” Sam went to the next result link.

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Here’s another one. This one is at a high school in California.” Sam summarized the news article: “Three high school juniors supposedly broke into classrooms, hacked into four teachers’ computers, and changed their grades online. The teachers were unaware their computers had been hacked and grades changed until a student brought the information to the attention of the principal and teachers noticed discrepancies in their bookkeeping.”

  “I don’t even know what to say,” Makayla said.

  “Listen to this.” Sam read aloud, “The principal said the culprits were very bright kids — in advanced placement and honors classes.”

  “Sam, do you really think that’s what’s happened here?”

  “I don’t know, Mac, but you have to admit, it’s a real possibility. We can’t deny the facts of these other cases. And there are more than just those two.” Sam scrolled through the long list of search results. “Many more.”

  “Oops, I’ve gotta go, Sam. Mom’s hollering for me. See you in the morning.”

  Sam cleared her cell, but kept staring at the laptop monitor. Everything Mrs. Trees had told her about the incident pointed straight to grade tampering. It was what made the most sense.

  But who?

  Sam popped her knuckles and opened up a new blog post template. She needed to be ahead of the news to make sure she stayed assigned to this story. Aubrey already had to be livid about her earlier post today, as was typical Aubrey fashion whenever Sam did anything that distracted from Aubrey herself. The she-beast would be out for blood tomorrow, and looking for any reason to give the story to someone — anyone — else.

  Sam quickly typed up a blog post, the words stringing together much, much faster than her essay in English had today. She finished and read it over. Good, but Sam still wasn’t satisfied. It was a lot of the same information she’d already posted that she’d gotten from Mrs. Trees. Just a replay of the facts.

  A thought occurred to her. Was the eschoolplus system messed up as well? She typed in the URL and hit enter.

  Eschoolplus was the web-based program the school utilized. School and district administrators, teachers, parents, and even students used the program to easily access and manage student information — like attendance records, grades, homework assignments, and even discipline issues. Everything was there.

  Once the site loaded on her laptop, Sam logged on and went to the report cards page, and searched for the current reporting period’s cards. Sure enough, the grades listed there were the same ones printed on her report card. The corruption was in the entire system. Sam stared at the screen. Was the whole software system jeopardized, just the district’s, or just the school’s?

  She checked the school district’s webpage and nearly catapulted off her bed. They had her article up on the site. And ohmygummybears . . . With. Her. Byline!

  Hopping off her bed, she did her happy dance. Chewy jumped up and ran in circles around her feet, excited just because Sam was.

  Calm it, girl. Sam took in a slow breath, then let it out even slower. She sat back down on the bed and pulled the MacBook back on her lap. She scrolled down the school district’s page. There was no other article or posting about report card errors at any other school in the district. Hmm. Did that mean the problem was isolated to Robinson?

  Sam ran an Internet search to see if there were any posts regarding report card errors today. There were a lot of Twitter and Facebook posts about the issue, but all from kids at her school. Even a couple of Instagram pictures of report cards, but nothing outside of her school. She also checked a couple of her Facebook friends who went to Robinson High, but there was no mention of a problem with their report cards.

  So the incident must be isolated to Robinson Middle School.

  Sam typed quickly as she edited her article to include this new information. Once she did a final read-over, she attached it to an email and sent it to Mrs. Pape to upload to the school blog’s servers. At the last second, she decided to copy Aubrey on the email as a courtesy.

  Aubrey would flip her lid, but what else was new? Aubrey always went out of her way to cause problems for Sam. This time would be no different. Sam figured Mrs. Pape would tell her tomorrow that she should’ve waited for approval from Aubrey before emailing it to her to upload, but Sam knew Aubrey would figure out a way to take the story from her. At least she’d get two posts in before Aubrey snatched it away.

  One had already gotten her up on the district’s website. That alone was worth the drama she’d have to deal with tomorrow.

  CHAPTER THREE

  . . . Sound Off, Senators, and leave a comment as to what YOU think happened with the report card f
iasco — grade tampering or computer glitch. ~ Sam Sanderson reporting.

  “Samantha Sanderson!”

  Sam gritted her teeth, rolled her eyes at Makayla, then rose from the cafeteria bench to face Aubrey Damas. “Yes, Aubrey?” She really wasn’t up to such drama before school even started.

  “How dare you take it upon yourself to cover a story and post not one, but two articles without authorization!” If smoke could really come out of someone’s ears, Aubrey would be setting off every smoke alarm within a five-mile radius.

  “Actually, Aubrey, isn’t it obvious that Mrs. Pape approved the article yesterday? That’s kind of how the e-alert went out.” Only Mrs. Pape and school and district officials could activate the email and text alert system. Sam flashed Aubrey a snarky smile. “Mrs. Pape was pleased that someone on the paper’s staff cared enough about such an important story to put in the extra time to interview Mrs. Trees and get the story out.” She kept smiling and lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “And the district must have thought it worthy since they put it up on their page last night.”

  Aubrey’s blue eyes squinted until they looked like nothing more than teensy tiny slits under her eyebrows. Her face turned a dark red, and her hands curled into fists at her sides.

  Sam took a step backward, just in case Aubrey exploded. No sense getting Aubrey-ick all over herself.

  “There are already over four hundred comments on your post, Sam.” Lana Wilson plopped down at the cafeteria table beside Makayla and grinned up at Sam and Aubrey. “A lot of parents are even chiming in. Isn’t that awesome, Aubrey?” Lana widened her smile.

  Sam pressed her lips together to stop the laughter from spilling out. Lana knew how much Aubrey hated when Sam got positive attention, and she liked to rub salt in Aubrey’s wounds every chance she got. This time, it was like she’d poured a whole shaker full.

  Makayla nodded. “What wonderful exposure for the Senator Speak. And, Aubrey, everyone must be impressed with your leadership as editor.” Makayla, ever the peacemaker, smiled sweetly and genuinely.