By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

BOSTON – A Boston middle school principal has been caught plagiarized a Forbes magazine column in an email she sent to her staff about taking risks for success.

A teacher skeptical of Jamie Moody’s first memo to staff as the new principal of Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester pasted a chunk of Moody’s July 9 email into Google, and the search engine immediate returned an April 22 Forbes column by Margie Warrell, the Boston Globe reports.

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Moody copied verbatim, or with slight tweaks, 300 words of Warrell’s column titled “Why Getting Comfortable with Discomfort is Crucial to Success,” which was based on her new book Stop Playing Safe, according to the Globe.

“It’s crazy what she did,” an unidentified teacher told the Globe. “We are very strict about plagiarism. We talk (students) through it … It’s almost like she is above the law. It’s just so bad for the kids and us.”

Moody issued a written apology last week after the Globe started asking questions, and others complained to the district’s central office, the newspaper reports.

“I inappropriately copied words from another author and passed them off as my own,” Moody wrote, according the Globe. “We teach our students never to do this and to always properly attribute when they use words written by someone else.

“There is never any excuse for this and if I could turn back the clock I would have done things very differently. I wish to offer my deepest apology to you and to the original author.”

The teachers union was quick to forgive.

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“I do believe everyone is entitled to a mistake like this,” Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman told the Globe. “I think it is appropriate she apologized, and it is appropriate we accept her apology, and consider it lesson learned.”

Moody was recently selected as principal for Frederick Middle School by a committee of teachers, parents and school board members after serving as the school’s assistant principal. She filled the spot of DaQuall Grahm, who left amid complaints about “questionable use of technology.”

Moody is paid $110,000 per year, according to the newspaper.

School officials wouldn’t divulge whether Moody is expected to face disciplinary action for the plagiarism, but students in Boston schools are typically issued a zero for their assignment and face other punishment for the same offense.

“We expect our students to attribute quotes from other sources in their essays, so we certainly expect the same thing from our school leaders,” interim superintendent John McDonough told the Globe. “Our focus is starting the school year strong and building a culture of respect and trust, so we are glad she recognizes this misstep and has apologized. It should not have happened in the first place.”