Connor Balthazor, 17, was in the middle of study hall when he was called into a meeting with his high school newspaper adviser.

A group of reporters and editors from the student newspaper, the Booster Redux at Pittsburg High School in southeastern Kansas, had gathered to talk about Amy Robertson, who was hired as the high school’s head principal on March 6.

The student journalists had begun researching Robertson, and quickly found some discrepancies in her education credentials. For one, when they researched Corllins University, the private university where Robertson said she got her master’s and doctorate degrees years ago, the website didn’t work. They found no evidence that it was an accredited university.

“There were some things that just didn’t quite add up,” Balthazor told The Washington Post.

The students began digging into a weeks-long investigation that would result in an article published on Friday questioning the legitimacy of the principal’s degrees and of her work as an education consultant.

On Tuesday night, Robertson resigned.

“In light of the issues that arose, Dr. Robertson felt it was in the best interest of the district to resign her position,” Pittsburg Community Schools announced in a statement. “The Board has agreed to accept her resignation.”

The resignation thrust the student newspaper staff into local, state and national news, with professional journalists nationwide applauding the students for asking tough questions and prompting change in their administration.

“Everybody kept telling them, ‘stop poking your nose where it doesn’t belong,'” newspaper adviser Emily Smith told The Post. But with the encouragement of the superintendent, the students persisted.

“They were at a loss that something that was so easy for them to see was waiting to be noticed by adults,” Smith said.

In the Booster Redux article, a team of six students — five juniors and one senior — revealed that Corllins had been portrayed in a number of articles as a diploma mill, a place where people can buy a degree, diploma or certificates. Corllins is not accredited by the U.S. Department of Education, the students reported. The Better Business Bureau’s website says Corllins’s physical address is unknown and the school isn’t a BBB-accredited institution.

“All of this was completely overlooked,” Balthazor said. “All of the shining reviews did not have these crucial pieces of information … you would expect your authority figures to find this.”

Robertson had been living in Dubai for more than 20 years before she was hired for the position. She said she most recently worked as the chief executive of an education consulting firm known as Atticus I S Consultants there.

In a conference call with the student journalists, Robertson “presented incomplete answers, conflicting dates and inconsistencies in her responses,” the students reported. She said she attended Corllins before it lost accreditation, the Booster Redux reported.

When contacted by the Kansas City Star after the publication of the students’ article, Robertson said all three of her degrees “have been authenticated by the U.S. government.” She declined to comment directly on students’ questions about her credentials, “because their concerns are not based on facts,” she said.

In an emergency faculty meeting Tuesday, the superintendent said Robertson was unable to produce a transcript confirming her undergraduate degree from the University of Tulsa, Smith said.

During the course of their reporting, the students spent weeks reaching out to educational institutions and accreditation agencies to corroborate Robertson’s background, some even working through spring break. Their adviser, Smith, had to recuse herself from the story because she was on the committee that hired Robertson. So the students sought the help of Eric Thomas, executive director of the Kansas Scholastic Press Association, and other local and national journalists and experts.

Under Kansas law, high school journalists are protected from administrative censorship. “The kids are treated as professionals,” Smith said. But with that freedom came a major responsibility to get the story right, Smith said. It also meant overcoming a natural hesitancy many students have to question authority.

“At the very beginning it was a little bit exciting,” Balthazor said. “It was like in the movies, a big city journalist chasing down a lead.”

But as the students began delving deeper into the story, keeping notes on a whiteboard, “it really started hitting me that this is a much bigger deal,” Balthazor said.

High School student gets accepted into all eight Ivy League schools

The students were among those packed into a school boardroom Tuesday night when the school board president announced Robertson’s resignation. After the announcement, a parent in the audience stood up and asked school officials if they would be recognizing the student journalists for uncovering crucial details about Robertson’s background. The superintendent said he would be meeting with the students Wednesday to personally thank them.

“We’d broken out of our comfort zones so much,” Balthazor said. “To know that the administration saw that and respected that, it was a really great moment for us.”

After local news broke that Robertson had resigned, numerous national journalists — including The Post’s David Fahrenthold — tweeted the students’ story, congratulating them for their work.

“Holy crap,” Balthazor thought, “why are these people paying attention to this little journalism story from southeast Kansas?”

While the high school junior was leaving track practise Tuesday night, he learned in a group message with his newspaper staff that Todd Wallack, a reporter for the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team, had tweeted the students’ story, saying: “Great investigative work by high school journalists.” Balthazor sat in his car in the parking lot and immediately called his mom to tell her the news.

Student news in pictures Show all 34 1 /34 Student news in pictures Student news in pictures South Korean policemen detain a student demonstrator during a protest against South Korean President Park Geun-Hye EPA Student news in pictures South Korean policemen detain student protestors during a protest against South Korean President Park Geun-Hye outside the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea. The protesters demanded that the parliament takes steps to impeach President Park Geun-Hye EPA Student news in pictures Filipino demonstrators face off with anti-riot police during a protest near the US Embassy in Manila, Philippine EPA Student news in pictures Hundreds of protesters including Indigenous People, students and militant groups marched towards the US Embassy to protest against the presence of US military troops and condemning the violent dispersal which left at least forty people hurt including twenty police officers and three people who were run over by a police van EPA Student news in pictures A federal judge in Mexico has ordered that a once-fugitive police chief be held on charges of kidnapping in the disappearance of 43 students Student news in pictures A man holds up a photograph of a missing student with a caption reading 'We are missing 43,' during a meeting marking the 25-month anniversary of the disappearances of 43 students in the southern state of Guerrero, in Mexico City. A federal judge in Mexico has ordered that a once-fugitive police chief be held on charges of kidnapping in the disappearance of 43 students AP Student news in pictures Miguel Perez, an intern student from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, puts away his cell phone before walking into the operating room at the Dr. Isaac Gonzalez MartÌnez Oncological Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Once they complete their general surgery training, many residents are moving to the United States in search of better wages, one of the main factors linked to the current shortage of specialists in the Island Student news in pictures Fewer EU students have applied to start university courses in the UK next autumn. There was a 9% fall in the numbers who had applied for courses, according to admissions service UCAS. PA wire Student news in pictures University students protest against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela. Masses of protesters jammed the streets of Venezuela's capital on the heels of a move by congress to open a political trial against Maduro, whose allies have blocked moves for a recall election AP Student news in pictures University students protest against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela AP Student news in pictures Thousands, most of them high school students, march during a demonstration in Madrid, Spain, on a one day strike to protest about the country's education law that increases the number of annual exams AP Student news in pictures Students gather on the west mall to confront the Young Conservatives of Texas student organization over a controversial bake sale on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. The Young Conservatives of Texas chapter at the University of Texas-Austin sparked the protest with an affirmative action bake sale. The club encouraged students to buy a cookie and talk about the disastrous policy that is affirmative action Student news in pictures Donald Parish Jr, right, confronts Electrical and Computer Engineering senior Dewayne Perry over a controversial bake sale on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. The Young Conservatives of Texas chapter at the University of Texas-Austin sparked the protest with an affirmative action bake sale. The club encouraged students to buy a cookie and talk about the disastrous policy that is affirmative action AP Student news in pictures Brigham Young University announced that students who report sexual assault will no longer be investigated for possible violations of the Mormon-owned school's strict honor code that bans such things as alcohol use AP Student news in pictures Students of secondary education march to protest against the final examinations and LOMCE (The Improvement Quality Education Law) law, after a call by trade unions, in Murcia, Spain EPA Student news in pictures South African police have used stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of protesters who had marched to the parliament building to call for free university education, where the finance minister was giving a budget speech AP Student news in pictures Police break up student protests outside the parliament in Cape Town, South Africa Reuters Student news in pictures South African Policemen fire rubber bullets at student protestors in Cape Town, South Africa AP Student news in pictures A student protestor is hit by a rubber bullet in Cape Town, South Africa AP Student news in pictures An injured student is helped by colleagues during protest outside the parliament during South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's medium term budget speech in Cape Town, South Africa Reuters Student news in pictures Plaintiffs and bereaved families of elementary school students killed in the tsunami that followed a major earthquake in northeastern Japan in 2011, show banners that say 'victory in a suit filed with the Sendai District Court' in Sendai. A Japanese court ordered municipalities to pay $13.7 million dollars to families of school children who were swept away to their deaths by the 2011 tsunami Getty Student news in pictures A group of student at Ewha Womans University calls for a thorough investigation into those involved in years of engagement with state affairs backstage by Choi Soon-sil, a personal confidante of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, at the school's front gate in Seoul, South Korea EPA Student news in pictures Students raise placards during a strike action called by the student union, in Madrid against university entry exams Getty Student news in pictures Libyans throw a newly graduated student into a fountain as they celebrate during the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Libyans celebrate as they attend the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Libyans celebrate as they attend the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Thousands of Thai Catholic students take part in mourning tributes and in singing the Thai Royal Anthem to honour late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at Saint Dominic School in Bangkok, Thailand EPA Student news in pictures Students of Silpakorn University paint portraits of the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the university campus in Bangkok Getty Student news in pictures A student of Silpakorn University paints a portrait of the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the university campus in Bangkok Getty Student news in pictures St Andrews University students take part in a foam fight known as Raisin Monday in the Lower College Lawn behind St Salvator's Quadrangle following the Raisin Weekend PA wire Student news in pictures St Andrews University students take part in a foam fight known as Raisin Monday in the Lower College Lawn behind St Salvator's Quadrangle following the Raisin Weekend, an annual tradition where student 'parents' inflict tasks on the unfortunate first-years they have adopted as 'children' as part of a mentoring scheme PA wire Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) in Havana, Cuba Reuters Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) take part in a practice in Havana, Cuba Reuters Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) wait in line to enter a classroom in Havana, Cuba Reuters

“I honestly thought they were joking at first,” Balthazor said. The Booster Redux staff had watched the movie Spotlight in class last year, Balthazor said. “It was awesome to know that such respected members of the journalism community had our backs.”

After graduation, Balthazor said, he hopes to pursue a degree in creative writing or filmmaking. Even though he doesn’t necessarily plan to stick with journalism, Balthazor said the past few weeks had been “surreal.”

“Most high schoolers would never get even close to an opportunity to get to experience something like this,” he said.