Los Angeles police are investigating how a charter high school’s computer system was used to change student grades, after the University of Miami noticed something seemed amiss about an applicant’s transcripts.

After the university alerted New West Charter in West Los Angeles about apparent grade tampering, the charter filed a report in March with the LAPD suggesting that a student or students may have obtained a counselor’s password and logged into the school’s computer system several times to change the course grades of three students, two of whom are brothers.

School officials said the breaches occurred in November, including two days during the Thanksgiving holiday break, according to a police search warrant obtained by The Times.

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One student’s grades were changed in early November. Grades for the two siblings were altered during the holiday break from a computer that appeared to be in Great Neck, N.Y.

School officials reported to the LAPD that they questioned the siblings about the grade tampering. The students, according to the school, said they were in New York during the same period but denied any involvement.

Police were granted a search warrant to access more information about the specific IP addresses tied to the reported breach, citing provisions in the law that would qualify the suspected grade changes as a felony.

Police declined to comment about the investigation.


New West Charter officials also were tight-lipped about the incident.

“As an authorized charter, we have specific procedures in place to deal with any type of issue that may come up and, quite frankly, that’s what we are doing,” New West Charter Principal Sharon Weir said.

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