You are a first-year assistant principal at a large high school, and you have been assigned a mentor to help you make the transition from the classroom to a school leadership position.  This mentor is a longtime administrator with many friends in the community. Midway through the school year, you are involved in a discipline situation 

with a student who has been caught in possession of marijuana on campus. You and your mentor meet with the student and the parents, and, in accordance with school district policy, suspend the student for several days. It just so happens that the parents of this student are good friends of your mentor, and one of the parents is also employed by the school district as an administrator at another school. Two days after the incident you discover that, after you left the conference, your mentor promised the student’s parents that, even thought the child will have to stay home for a few days, he (the mentor) will ensure that the matter isn’t recorded on the child’s permanent discipline record. He promises to simply list the student as being absent from school on the days he is suspended. You check the records to verify all of this, and sure enough, this is exactly what had been done by the veteran administrator. To further complicate the matters, the principal of your school is in poor health and is away for the remainder of the school year on a medical leave. In his absence, the school is essentially run “by committee,” with the committee comprised of all the assistant principals, including your mentor. 

What are the legal and ethical ramifications of this situation?

In this case standards 4 and 10 of Georgia’s Code of Ethics has been violated.  The mentor administrator obviously violated section 4 of standard 4 when he changed the reason for the student’s absences.  He also violated standard 10 by not demonstrating conduct that follows generally recognized professional standards.  If the assistant principal does not report this situation I believe he may be in violation of the code of ethics as well, therefore I feel it is the assistant principal’s duty to report what he has witnessed.  

I agree with the group 2’s response to report the situation.  I also agree with group 2 on the matter of contacting the principal.  I would attempt to contact the principal first and if that attempt was unsuccessful I would then begin to work my way up the chain of command until I was able to report it to the correct person.  I think directly reporting this to the PSC is breaking the change of command.