Throughout Covid, teens have struggled with doing their classwork (or rather with the motivation to do said work), which has led them to cheat in numerous ways. The increased access to technology tools, along with teachers’ assignments, made students’ desires for quick, correct answers grow exponentially, and many teachers and students have noticed a real cheating epidemic this year.

Students say that cheating is easier now than ever before after last year’s experience. Students are not getting their work done without cheating because the students feel like they are behind. Students are not caring about the fact that they are cheating: they just want to get their work done and get it over with.

“The teachers don’t know what they are doing,” said Dylan Edwards. “They assign work that can be searched up.”

The ability to edit screenshots, use paraphrasing tools, or even just copy someone’s answers seems more appealing than ever before. People were able to get away with more last year and they cheated more efficiently because they were home. Teachers weren’t there to tell them to pay attention. Students also had their phones and better opportunities to find answers.

“It’s easy to do online because Google has everything,” said Fisher Gurganus.

Every teacher has a different policy for students who cheat. Sometimes you can restart or sometimes you get a zero. For many, once you get caught cheating, it’s an automatic zero in the grade book and call home.

“Usually a zero if a student gets caught it usually just depends on the class,” said Wanda Skoog.

Cheating is nothing new, but this level of laziness is. Students don’t try to do work anymore; many just cheat and move on without even knowing what the assignment is talking about. Many students don’t understand what’s going on in an assignment. Even when they genuinely need help, they still use Google and other resources. 

“Thinking about the cheating we’re seeing this year, I’m not sure if it’s due to a lack of understanding or from a lack of effort or willingness to do the hard work of learning,” said English teacher Anna Saunders. “Learning is messy and hard, and cheating makes it easy to just go through the motions and get a decent grade, but in the end, you suffer because you are missing foundational skills and experiences needed as you move forward in your education.”