Updated

A Boston middle school principal is under fire after admitting she plagiarized a Forbes magazine column in an effort to inspire staff.

Jaime Moody, the new principal at Lilla Frederick Pilot Middle School, said in an apology obtained by The Boston Globe she "inappropriately copied words from another author and passed them off as my own." She also apologized to the school department and the original author.

The plagiarism was discovered by a suspicious teacher who used Google to find the original, which ran in Forbes in April. Moody's memo included large chunks of word-for-word copying.

It's unclear what, if any punishment Moody will face. A school department spokesman said any punishment would be a confidential personnel matter.

A student caught plagiarizing gets an automatic zero for the assignment.