A former Jones High

Alleged alterations affected 15 at Jones

principal changed the grades of 15 students in an attempt to help with athletic scholarships, athletic eligibility or honor society membership, an investigation finds.

The former principal of Jones High School changed the grades of 15 students, looking to secure their eligibility to play sports, boost their chances of athletic scholarships or guarantee their membership in a national honor society, an investigation by the Orange County school district found.

Roderick Waldon resigned the top job at the Orlando school in early May, shortly after school administrators confronted him with what they’d found, a report released late Thursday said.

The investigation began in April, after someone contacted the district alleging he had changed the grades of two students.

The district’s employee relations department determined that those allegations were true, saying in one case, Waldon had altered one of the student’s grades from Ds to As.

The district then found 13 other students whose grades also improved because their principal had altered them to their advantage.

The report says Waldon admitted to Leighann Blackmore, the district’s director of employee relations, that he changed all 15 students’ academic records.

“Principal Waldon stated no one asked him to change grades for any students, he did this on his own,” her report said.

The district later corrected the students’ grades and met with the teenagers to explain what happened.

One student was determined ineligible to run track.

The district also alerted the Florida High School Athletic Association and the NCAA Clearinghouse, which handles scholarships, to what had happened, the report said.

Waldon said he changed one student’s grades from Ds to As – the report did not say in what classes – because he thought “instruction was poor” and realized only an A would get the student into an honor society. He changed that student’s grades for both the first and second marking periods, the report said.

He could not explain why he did not change the grades of other students in that class, Blackmore wrote, nor what he did to help the teacher do better, if that was his concern.

For another student, Waldon removed credits, and F grades the student had earned at other schools, saying he thought the student had unfairly been given two Fs for the same class. His action boosted the student’s grade-pointaverage to a 2.0, which is required to play sports, the report said.

Waldon said a transcript from a previous school supported the higher grade-point average, the report noted, but what he showed Blackmore did not include all the student’s completed coursework.

The report blacked out students’ names and the name of the other school the one student had attended.

Blackmore said she reviewed student transcripts and “audit logs” from the district’s student record system during the investigation, the report said.

Waldon was appointed to Jones in 2015. He could not be reached for comment.