Our goal at South County High School (SCHS) is to promote both a fair and honest learning environment that facilitates academic success. Students are responsible for maintaining academic integrity of their work when completing classroom assignments, homework, projects, and tests.  Students, parents, faculty, and staff are expected to adhere to all rules and regulations of the Honor Code in order to foster and maintain an academic environment of intellectual honesty and individual responsibility and equality.

The SCHS Honor Code prohibits the following behaviors:    

Cheating - Defined as receiving or giving unauthorized academic assistance, including, but not limited to:

• Pressuring someone to provide his or her homework or assignment.

• Copying another student’s assignment/homework/project, either in part or in whole, or providing answers to a fellow student.

• Allowing another person to complete an assignment or project for you, in part or in whole, unless approved by the teacher.

• Copying answers from another student’s quiz/test or allowing another student to copy from yours; this includes verbal and non-verbal exchange of information.

• Providing or using unauthorized notes or other aids, such as dictionaries, during quizzes or tests.

• Providing or using unauthorized data, or other aids, such as calculators, cell phones, translators or other electronic devices, during quizzes or tests.

• Discussing content of quizzes or tests before all students have taken the assessments.

 

Committing Fraud – Defined as a deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain (The American Heritage Dictionary, page 699, 2000).  Examples of fraud may include but are not limited to:

• Hacking into electronic databases or altering paper records in order to change grades or other student data.

• Signing a parent’s/guardian’s signature or anyone else’s other than your own on any document.

• Hiring or paying another student/person/website to complete school assignments for you and submitting the work as your own.  

• Not contributing work to a group project, but taking credit for the final project.

• Misrepresenting grades, qualifications, experience with an organization, participation in a club, information on an application or a resume.

• Presenting community service hours for course credit or honorary requirements when no service was performed.

• Falsifying statistical or experimental data for lab assignments, projects, and research papers.

 

Plagiarizing - To use and pass off the ideas or writings of another as one’s own (The American Heritage Dictionary, page 1340, 2000).  Examples of plagiarism include but are not limited to:

• Copying material directly from published material or a website without providing documentation and/or a bibliography.

• Turning in an assignment or project as your work when it was originally written in part or in whole by someone else (even with permission from the original writer).

• Altering, restating, or paraphrasing another person’s words, ideas, or work without giving credit or acknowledging your sources.  This would include but not be limited to text, music and video clips, photos, graphics, and artwork.

Intellectual Theft/Stealing - Defined as taking the property of another without right or permission (The American Heritage Dictionary, page 1696, 2000).  Examples of intellectual theft may include but are not limited to:

• Taking another’s piece of writing/work and submitting it as your own.  This would include but not be limited to text, music and video clips, photos, graphics, and artwork.

• Taking teacher copies of quizzes, tests, and/or teacher editions of textbooks.

• Taking photographs or making digital images of exams/tests/quizzes with a camera or any electronic device.

 

The SCHS Honor Code includes the following responsibilities:

Students are obligated to:

• Learn and understand the SCHS Honor Code policy.

• Pledge to uphold and sustain academic integrity in our school by being an example to others:  complete assignments and tests in an honorable manner by submitting original ideas, work, and answers.

• Help create an academic environment where all members of the school community view cheating as unacceptable, and report those who commit honor code violations.

• Avoid situations that might contribute to violation of the honor code.

• Avoid unauthorized assistance and seek clarification from your teacher of permissible and non-permissible academic assistance.

• Use sources in the prescribed manner.

• Document borrowed materials by citing sources.

• Avoid plagiarism by using quotation marks for statements taken from others, by acknowledging information and ideas borrowed from any source, and by consulting your teacher about questionable situations.

• Avoid “cutting” and “pasting” from computer text without proper attribution.

 

Parents/Guardians are obligated to:

• Fully understand and accept the school community’s Honor Code policy.

• Support the academic integrity of the school by establishing clear expectations at home that their children will adhere to the Honor Code.

• Avoid providing unauthorized assistance and seek clarification from teachers of permissible and non-permissible academic assistance.

• Support the school’s decision regarding consequences should their children violate the Honor Code.

 

Teachers are obligated to:

• Learn and understand the SCHS Honor Code policy.

• Present, uphold and enforce consistently the SCHS Honor Code.

• Teach or review the correct use of sources when assigning work.

• Teach students summarization of material and the distinction between summarizing and copying straight from the text.

• Display the Honor Code in the classroom and use the pledge on assessments.

• Specify the types of collaboration that are discouraged and those that are encouraged.

• Structure conditions during testing to limit the possibility of cheating. Closely monitor students in a testing environment and use cover sheets and additional supervision when appropriate.

• Ensure that each student understands the use of permissible study aids in coursework.

• Discuss the alleged honor code violation with the student before proceeding with consequences or a discipline referral.

• Report any violation of the Honor Code to the parent/guardian and forward a discipline referral to the subschool principal.

 

Administrators are obligated to:

• Learn and understand the SCHS Honor Code policy.

• Present and uphold the SCHS Honor Code consistently with each child.

• Teach the Honor Code to all students within the first week of school.

• Provide students, parents, and faculty/staff a written copy of the SCHS Honor Code.

• Prepare and provide Honor Code materials for classroom use.

• Display the Honor Code in hallways, conference rooms, and other common areas.

• Meet with students who violate the Honor Code.

• Maintain a written record of Honor Code violations in student discipline folders.

• Develop a plan of action for those who violate the code in an attempt to limit any further infraction by the student.

Consequences for Violating the Honor Code

The lists below provide general guidelines for consequences for honor code violations.  Administrators may alter the penalties, up to and including recommendation for expulsion, even for a first offense, depending on its severity.  Violations of the Honor Code from previous school years will be reviewed and taken into consideration.

1st Offense

• Teacher will discuss honor code violation with student and parent/guardian.

• Teacher will apply consequences (lowering grade on assignment or grade of F on assignment or redo assignment).*

• Teacher will forward a discipline referral (for record-keeping only) to the appropriate subschool principal.

 

2nd Offense

• Teacher will discuss honor code violation with student and parent/guardian.

• Teacher will apply consequences (lowering grade on assignment or grade of F on assignment or redo assignment).*

• Teacher will complete and forward a discipline referral to the appropriate subschool principal.

• A student-parent-teacher-administrator conference will be held.

• Notification of honor code violation will be provided to all Honor Society, SGA, and class office sponsors.  (Sponsor will adhere to organization guidelines for sanctions.)

 

3rd Offense

• Teacher will discuss honor code violation with student and parent/guardian.

• Teacher will apply consequences (lowering grade on assignment or grade of F on assignment or redo assignment).*

• Teacher will complete and forward a discipline referral to the appropriate subschool principal.

• Subschool principal will assign student to a Saturday School detention.

• Student will be removed from any honor society that he/she is a current member of and may be excused from SGA or class office.  Further, student may not apply to any honor society or run for SGA/class office for 12 months after the third offense.

 

4th Offense

• Teacher will discuss honor code violation with student and parent/guardian.

• Teacher will apply consequences (lowering grade on assignment or grade of F on assignment or redo assignment).*

• Teacher will complete and forward a discipline referral to the appropriate subschool principal.

• Subschool principal will suspend student for one day.

 

Subsequent offenses

• Teacher will discuss honor code violation with student and parent/guardian.

• Teacher will apply consequences (lowering grade on assignment, grade of F on assignment, redo assignment).*

• Teacher will complete and forward a discipline referral to the appropriate subschool principal.

• Subschool principal will suspend student for 2 to 10 days.

 

*Consequences must be consistent among content teams.