Beecher Hills Elementary School

                                                                            Beecher Hills Elementary School

                                                                                  Academic Honesty Policy

Purpose

Beecher Hills Elementary School believes that modeling, teaching, and practicing academic honesty is essential to preparing our students for their academic and professional careers. Even more importantly, practicing academic honesty with our students supports their development as young men and women who act with integrity, honesty and take responsibility for their own actions. Beecher Hill’s Academic Honesty policy is framed by the IB Learner Profiles and Approaches to Learning Skills.  More specifically, we encourage our students to be inquirers, knowledgeable, and principled students while working toward developing the following skills:

IB defines academic honesty as “a set of values and skills that promote personal integrity and good practice in teaching, learning, and assessment.” Academic honesty is acknowledging responsibility for the production of students’ own work, recognition of the work of others, and maintaining honor and trust in the learning environments of our schools. We believe that in order to achieve this, it is important that we focus on educating our students to be principled, to recognize and celebrate authentic student work, and to take pride in promoting student learning through inquiry, which includes responsible use of information and communication of original work.

The Academic Honesty Policy is designed to define and clarify the expectations associated with the submission of authentic work. It provides staff, students, parents, counselors, and administrators with a common understanding of academic misconduct, defines the responsibilities of all parties in preventing academic misconduct, and encourages principled behavior in the learning environment of our schools.

In order to understand appropriate academic honesty practice, it is important to clarify behavior that can lead to an unfair advantage in academic work, hereby referred to as “academic misconduct.”

 Definitions

Academic misconduct includes:

 Plagiarism: “The representation, intentionally or unwittingly, of the ideas, words or work of another person without proper, clear and explicit acknowledgment.”

Examples of Plagiarism:

• Any representation of others’ work as your own
• Non-original work that is not cited and appropriately referenced in submissions
• Copying information from a book or a website
• Misuse of quotation marks, paraphrasing, and in text citations which makes authorship unclear
• Failure to identify the source of elements of nonverbal work (ie. painting, dance, photo, proof, musical composition, etc.) 
• Using online language translators unless explicitly allowed

Collusion: “Supporting academic misconduct by another student, as in allowing one’s work to be copied or submitted for assessment by another.”

Examples of Collusion:

• Helping someone else cheat both deliberately and through support.
• Allowing your work to be copied and/or submitted by another student
• Divide and conquer approach where you are not the author of the entire assignment given by the instructor (if not part of assignment).
• Representing significantly unequal work as an equal collaboration.
• Writing a paper or doing homework for another student, both at the time as well as sharing completed work with students who take a course in the future.
• Sharing information about assessment content and questions with other students.

Collusion is to be contrasted with collaboration, which we define as “multiple students actively engaged during the course as well as in the creation of a product per the assignment guidelines.” It is important to note that teachers must be clear with assignment guidelines to specify the difference between collaboration and collusion on given tasks.

Cheating and accomplice to cheating:  Cheating is behavior that results in a student making a deliberate choice to gain an unfair advantage in an assessment situation.  An accomplice to cheating is someone who makes the deliberate choice to help another individual cheat.  Cheating includes but is not limited to the following:

• copying another student’s work (with or without his/her knowledge);
• copying assessment tasks
• forgery
• using unauthorized notes or other study aids during an assessment
• submitting work as his/her own that has been copied
• communicating with other students during as assessment

Other Acts of Academic Dishonesty:

Duplication of Work: the presentation of the same work for different assessment components

Unfair Practice: Any other behavior that gives an unfair advantage to a student or that affects the results of another student.

               Examples of unfair practice:

• Falsifying records
• Falsifying data
• Sharing passwords
• Using unauthorized materials
• Disclosing information about assessments
• Altering grades
• Phony citations
• Impersonating another person
• Misconduct during testing times

It is the understanding of all school personnel that when a student puts his or her name on any assignment, they are submitting it as their own and acknowledging original ownership.

Roles and Responsibilities in Supporting Academic Honesty 

Faculty/Support Personnel

• Communicate appropriate collaboration versus collusion with each assignment
• Teach a recognized citation convention for written and non-written works.
• Demonstrate and model academic honesty in presentations, etc.
• Report and record academic dishonesty through a referral and school notes
• Assure that students in their class understand that when they submit a task as their own, they are expressing that they have not received nor given aid on assignments or assessments. Teachers can opt to ask students to use their signature to validate this point
• Minimize temptation for academic misconduct in assignments/assessment situations
• Communicate with students, parents, counselors, administrators, about concerns and academic misconduct offenses
• Involve students in reflection/discussion in the instance of academic misconduct

Students:

• Confirm understanding of academic honesty with signature on Academic Honesty Parent/Student Agreement each year
• Report academic misconduct violations to a trusted school employee
• Strive to produce authentic work
• Understand that putting his/her name on an assignment certifies it as his/her own work, cited appropriately
• Minimize chances of academic misconduct by balancing time appropriately
• If an incident of academic misconduct occurs, either intentional or unintentional, complete a reflection process with the teacher
• Understand proper citation expectations for assignments
• Ask for guidance when unsure

Administration:

• Support academic honesty policy and investigate all counselor/teacher reports of academic misconduct
• Ensure that all staff, students, and parents understand definitions, responsibilities, and repercussions of academic misconduct
• Ensure the academic honesty policy is implemented consistently throughout the school
• Provide staff development and guidance on academic writing and referencing systems 
• Provide teachers with material to guide students in maintaining academic honesty
• Investigate academic misconduct when necessary
• Make parent and student contact to reflect on academic misconduct incidents

Parents, guardians, and/or outside support:

• Read and acknowledge the Academic Honesty Plan
• Encourage child to practice academic honesty
• Encourage child to cultivate a culture of academic honesty at home and in school
• Address concerns of academic misconduct with their child and school personnel if necessary
• Monitor tutors to assure authentic student work

Preventing Academic Misconduct

In order to prevent academic misconduct, Beecher HIlls Elementary is dedicated to teaching students the skills necessary to demonstrate academic honesty. Lessons will be taught through direct teaching and coaching, specifically in the areas of communication and research skills found in the Approaches to Learning. Students in upper grades will be taught to cite their work and acknowledge sources as they complete projects that require research. Students will be guided through working collaboratively so that all members of a group work equally, and conflicts can be resolved if they arise.

Repercussions

When academic misconduct occurs, incidents will be addressed by the teacher with the student. The teacher will direct students to participate in a reflection process to review their misconduct and to decide on ways to improve.  When appropriate, the school Counselor will become involved and the incident will be reported to parents, and other administrators (as necessary). 

Communication Plan

A brief description of Beecher Hills Elementary School’s Academic Honesty Policy will be published on the school website and in the Student Handbook. The policy will be discussed with PYP students and parents early in the school year, and referred to consistently throughout the school year.

Review of the Academic Honesty Policy

This policy will be monitored, reviewed and updated annually by the IB PYP Coordinator, Team IBelieve, Administrative Team, staff and community stakeholders to adapt to changing best practices, changes in the PYP and changes of our community.  . 

Sources:

• PYP from Principles to Practice International Baccalaureate Organization.
• Academic Honesty in the IB educational context (2014)
• Bunche Middle School Academic Honesty Policy
• N. Fickett Elementary School Academic Honesty Policy
• Benjamin E. Mays High School, 2019
• ACS Egham Academic Honesty Policy 2018/19