Academic integrity policy

SIX PILLARS of CHARACTER

TrustworthinessRespect

ResponsibilityFairnessCaring

Citizenship

http://www.findstone.com/img/rs83pillars.jpg

AIM:To foster good citizenship, we expect all

students to care about making ethical decision and to respect others by taking

responsibility for their actions.

Should students not meet the district’s expectations for trustworthiness, we are committed to providing and modeling a

uniform and fair process for determining appropriate consequences.

DID YOU KNOW?57% of high school students say they didn’t think copying a few

sentences without proper credit, sharing test answers, or getting answers from someone who had taken the test was cheating.

(Rutgers University Study, 2001)

53% of high school students say that cheating is “no big deal.”*

98% say the have let others copy their work.*

34% said their parents never talked to them about cheating.*

*(Josephson’s Institute of Ethics, 2000)

http://www.pbs.org/inthemix/educators/ethics_guide.pdf#search='why%20students%20cheat'

Cheating Increaseswhen students…

believe the benefits outweigh the costs

do not understand plagiarism’s definition

lack proper research skills

do not think they’ll get caught.

INTEGRITY

American Heritage Dictionary's definition of integrity is the

"steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code."

http://www.washington.edu/president/provost/bestpractices.html

INTEGRITY

Don McCabe of Rutgers University and the Center for Academic Integrity:

“There is less cheating at institutions or in classrooms where the students perceive the faculty as committed to academic integrity in their professional lives and in their dealings with their students.”

http://www.washington.edu/president/provost/bestpractices.html

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY POLICY:

EXPECTATIONS, POLICIES, and PROCEDURES

Preamble Students are expected do their own work and to have a personal sense of pride in their own accomplishments.

Teachers are encouraged to create a learning environment which helps students to embrace the ideal of academic integrity as something valuable in its own right.

Plagiarism and all other forms of cheating are serious violations of trust between students and teachers and are impediments to true learning.

OBLIGATIONS

The East Greenwich Public School system is committed to maintaining a climate of personal and academic honesty to help its students become responsible citizens.

OBLIGATIONS

District-wide, each student is expected to

1. Know and abide by the expectations of academic integrity.

2. Know the consequences for violating these expectations.

OBLIGATIONSTeachers are expected to

1. Review with students the policies and procedures for academic integrity at the start of the school year.

2. Specify classroom expectations regarding collaborative versus individual work.

3. Take action against students who violate the school district's expectations for academic integrity.

CHEATINGTo the student:

Cheating is defined as creating a dishonest advantage for yourself and has no place in a school community that values and expects personal and academic integrity of its students. If you are accused of cheating, being truthful to your teacher and to the Honor Board throughout the investigation process is extremely important. While cheating is certainly a most serious personal and academic offense, lying about it will do irreparable damage to your credibility and subject you to additional consequences (see below).

CHEATINGTo the student:

Simple cheating includes, but is not limited to, the following serious offenses:

1. Copying another student's homework or assignment.

2. Providing or receiving test questions or answers while taking a test or afterwards.

3. Making your work available to another student for the purpose of cheating or copying. This includes posting or circulating your work electronically.

4. Inappropriately using electronic translators as part of a foreign language course.

CHEATINGTo the student:

A special note on group work: Unless specified otherwise by your teacher, you

are responsible for adhering to the following: If you are assigned work to be accomplished

collaboratively, you must insure the work you submit is solely your own. For example, you are not to do lab reports step by step with a partner or allow a partner to use your work in preparing his or hers. Although your classmates may perform the same procedures, you must summarize the procedures independently and refrain from copying them from a lab sheet.

It is not acceptable to hand in work that is identical or nearly identical to another student's.

CHEATINGTo the student:

A special note on submitting the same work for different classes:

Unless specified otherwise by your teacher, work done for one class may not be submitted to another for credit. For example, if you are assigned a research paper in American Literature and another in American History, you may not submit to the teacher an identical paper or a paper on a similar topic.

CHEATING

Plagiarism, an extremely serious form of cheating, includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Citing the wrong source (e.g. citing a mirror website instead of the original).

CHEATING

Plagiarism, an extremely serious form of cheating, includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Paraphrasing a writer or artist's ideas, photographs, exhibits, images, graphs, charts, or music without citing the source in your work.

CHEATING

Plagiarism, an extremely serious form of cheating, includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Fabricating a source or a quotation.

CHEATING

Plagiarism, an extremely serious form of cheating, includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Using the exact words of a phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph, etc. without including them in quotation marks and citing the original writer (e.g. copying and pasting from a website, printing directly from a website, etc.).

CHEATING

Plagiarism, an extremely serious form of cheating, includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Claiming as your own a paper, project, photograph, exhibit, image, graph, chart, or musical composition-- in whole or in part-- by a parent, tutor, sibling, friend, professional writer, etc.

PROCEDURE FOR SUSPECTED CHEATING

1. The teacher will notify the student and his or her parents that cheating has been suspected. Suspect materials and/or student work will immediately be confiscated and remain so until the situation is fully resolved.

PROCEDURE FOR SUSPECTED CHEATING

2. At this stage, if the student takes responsibility for cheating,

The teacher must notify the student's parents and fill out a referral form to be kept on file with the assistant principal who will determine whether it is the student's only such offense within two years.

The student will receive a zero for the assignment.

Additionally, for major assignments such as research papers, the student will receive a zero for any graded material pertaining to the paper-writing process (e.g. note-cards, outline, drafts, etc.).

The teacher MUST fill out an incident form describing the incident and penalties. This form must be submitted to the assistant principal in a timely manner.

The assistant principal is responsible for furnishing a copy of the form to the student's guidance counselor. The form will be kept on file in both offices for the purpose of documenting this first offense.

PROCEDURE FOR SUSPECTED CHEATING

3. If the student continues to claim he or she has NOT cheated while the teacher still suspects the student has OR if the teacher learns that this is the student's second offense in two school years, the teacher will notify his or her department chair of the allegation.

PROCEDURE FOR SUSPECTED CHEATING

4. The department chair will notify the chair of the Honor Board to convene a hearing of the board.

PROCEDURE FOR SUSPECTED CHEATING

5. The department chair will notify the student's parents of the allegations and invite them to a hearing of the Honor Board.

PROCEDURE FOR SUSPECTED CHEATING

6. The Honor Board must have a quorum of at least four teachers from four different departments (one of whom must teach in the same department as the teacher making the allegation), and the assistant principal. The student's teacher, however, may not be a voting member of the board. The board will be tasked with examining the student's work and other relevant exhibits presented by either side. The teacher and student may share their opinions and evidence with the board.

PROCEDURE FOR SUSPECTED CHEATING

7. Should the board reach consensus that the student has plagiarized, the student will receive a zero for the assignment. Additionally, the student will receive a zero for any graded material pertaining to the paper-writing process (e.g. note-cards, outline, drafts, etc.). The Honor Board's chair will also notify the student's teacher, guidance counselor, and assistant principal of the incident by filling out a discipline form which summarizes the circumstances and the board's decision. This form will be kept on file with all four parties for no more than three years following the hearing date.

PROCEDURE FOR SUSPECTED CHEATING

8. The Honor Board's chair will notify the student's parents of the board's decision in a timely manner and inform them of any applicable consequences.

Additional Consequences

If the board reaches consensus that a student who has committed plagiarism has NOT been truthful during the process listed above or has cheated on a previous assignment, the student may, at the discretion of the Honor Board, be subject to the following additional consequences depending on the severity of the offense:

A formal reprimand by the Honor Board Community service Notification of the administration and the student's

guidance counselor Notification of teachers in the department who may

decide individually not to write a recommendation to college

Notification of class advisor or coach which may result in impeachment or forfeiture of leadership position

Notification of the National Honor Society advisor which may result in ejection from the society

Suspension from school (at the discretion of the administration only)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

By signing below, I affirm that I have read and understood the expectations, procedures, and consequences outlined above. I understand that this acknowledgement shall be in force and in full effect for five years after the date of signature. Declining to sign this form does not absolve students of the expectations, policies, and procedures listed above.

AIM:To foster good citizenship, we expect all

students to care about making ethical decision and to respect others by taking

responsibility for their actions.

Should students not meet the district’s expectations for trustworthiness, we are committed to providing and modeling a

uniform and fair process for determining the appropriate consequences.

SIX PILLARS of CHARACTER

TrustworthinessRespect

ResponsibilityFairnessCaring

Citizenship

http://www.findstone.com/img/rs83pillars.jpg