There was one year when a group of students in my Sec 4 form class who cheated in a Mathematics test. A spare test paper had been left in class and they passed it to someone in another class who had not taken the test. The whole lot was caught.
The school’s penalty was: conduct grade would be fair and their parents would be informed.
It was not a pleasant task to inform their parents. One of them argued. Another begged me to give her daughter a chance. “Mr. Lee, she (her daughter) idolises you. Please give her a chance.” There was no way that I could have reversed the school’s verdict even if I wanted to and I did not want to. They did something wrong and there has to be consequences.
One of the girls who were caught was an exemplary student. She was a student councillor and had excellent conduct grades. We had a conversation it. She cried. I was adamant.
For DSA season, this student had applied to a junior college on the strength of her CCA.
One day that junior college called me to ask why she had gotten the fair conduct grade. It pained me to tell the truth. In the end, she went to another junior college.
For an act of youthful indiscretion, that student paid a high price.