Harvard Westlake School

Six sophomores were expelled and more than a dozen other students faced suspensions Tuesday in a cheating scandal that has rocked Harvard-Westlake, a top-tier Los Angeles private school with a national reputation for its academics. Administrators said students conspired to steal Spanish and history tests by distracting teachers in their classrooms. The tests were then shown to several other students before midterm exams last month, said Harvard-Westlake President Thomas Hudnut.

A 17-year-old Harvard-Westlake School student was being sought Tuesday by Los Angeles police after he allegedly beat a female classmate with a hammer before trying to choke her, a department spokeswoman said. The 16-year-old girl was treated at a hospital for a broken leg and nose, said LAPD spokeswoman April Harding. The boy, who drove off in a beige 2000 four-door Jaguar, had not been apprehended.

A 17-year-old Harvard-Westlake student was hospitalized and receiving psychiatric treatment Wednesday after allegedly beating a female classmate with a hammer and trying to choke her while they were parked in a car near the private campus in Studio City. Attorney Patrick Smith, who is representing the boy's family, said the student returned to his Beverly Hills home immediately after the alleged assault, which occurred about 5 p.m. Monday.

An attempted murder case in which a Harvard-Westlake School student attacked a classmate with a hammer has roiled the exclusive college preparatory campus nestled in Coldwater Canyon and raised questions about whether more could have been done to prevent it. Parents said they were pressing administrators to explain what system was in place to identify troubled students and whether red flags about this particular 17-year-old's behavior were taken seriously.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office on Wednesday moved to try a 17-year-old Harvard-Westlake School student as an adult in the highly publicized beating last month of a female classmate. In a felony complaint filed in Van Nuys Superior Court, prosecutors charged Rupert Tumin Ditsworth of Beverly Hills with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly beating Elizabeth Barcay, 18, with a claw hammer.

Students from Harvard-Westlake School, an elite private campus in North Hollywood, turned in a remarkable performance on the 2005 Advanced Placement exams. That's hardly surprising, but whether it's a good thing depends in large part on where one comes down in the growing debate over AP courses.

Greg Hilliard gets tired, and the players he coaches on the Harvard-Westlake boys' basketball team do too. But when they are left weary by a schedule that recently included eight games in three states in a 17-day span, they think about their four-point loss in the state Division III championship game last season. The grind, they believe, will be worth it in the end. "I think we did what we wanted to do," Hilliard said of his team's nonleague calendar.

If Tahj Mowry had his wish, he'd rather appear on ESPN than "Entertainment Tonight," which helps explain his mission in life to play college football instead of settling for being a teenage heartthrob.

On the day Zachary Jarrod Woolridge was born in 1986, the Chicago Bulls' general manager at the time, Jerry Krause, sent a contract to the hospital declaring that if he grew to a certain height and could shoot a basketball, the Bulls would sign him. Now that Woolridge is a 6-foot-6 senior starter for North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake and headed to Princeton, he wouldn't mind finding that long-lost contract, if only to have a laugh with his friends. Woolridge is much more than a basketball player.

Amanda Maddahi's backing down from the physical play she faces as a center for North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake is about as likely as her basketball team's losing a game. In fact, it's less likely. The Wolverines are 24-3 this season, so they've lost. But Maddahi doesn't back down from anyone. Nor does she have to. Watching her under the basket confirms that she is as tough as nails, probably because away from the court, Maddahi can break wood blocks with her bare hands.