Man Poses As High School Student

He fit right in, the shy junior at Cleveland High School. After he’d been at school just two weeks, he inspired his classmates with a rousing speech about learning.

He speedily was elected the junior class vice president.

Then he disappeared.

Turns out, William McDermott actually was a 23-year-old herbal products salesman named David Grenell who wanted to spark a serious dialogue about education.

He left, he said, because his mission was mostly accomplished.

Until Friday, students and school officials had no idea about McDermott’s true identity.

“He came out of the blue,” Ben Andrews, president of the junior class, said. “He was an average kid. He blended into the crowd. But he had some really good ideas about how we should have more control of our education.”

The transfer student showed up at Cleveland a few days after school started in early September. He told school officials he had just moved from North Carolina, then forged registration documents.

Next, he called the school from his northeast Portland home and impersonated his father.

He attended his first class Sept. 9, leaving two weeks later. He was dropped from the rolls before officials discovered the school he said he had come from hadn’t responded to a transcript request.

School officials say the intensity and shuffling at the beginning of the year made it possible for Grenell to slip through. But they say he eventually would have been found out.

Grenell, a 1995 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, said he got the idea from a group of theorists. The “Custom Mades” has about 500 West Coast participants and is interested in dispelling cliches and stereotypes through playful behavior, he said.

His few days at Cleveland showed him that students are disempowered and treated like numbers, he said.

“From what I saw, these kids are very bright,” he said. “After they have been bored to death and turned into dollars by the school system, they come out stupid and angry.”

Teachers too often relied on educational videotapes and fill-in-the blank assignments that did not encourage analysis, he said.

But he also criticized students. Their nonchalant attitudes and disrespect for adults intimidated some teachers, he said.

One of the few students who talked to Grenell in depth, student body president Kelsey Myers, said they talked about an idea to make after-school student forums more political.

“He said there’s a certain potential to accomplish a lot in school and the community,” Myers said. “He motivated me to take action and gave me a lot of confidence.”