Horse Heaven Hills Middle School Academic Integrity Policy

Rationale

We, the staff of Horse Heaven Hills Middle School understand and value the concept of intellectual property. Therefore, we strive to teach students the ethic of responsibly documenting the ideas of others in all formats. To do this, we believe that we must not only teach the ethics and mechanics of documentation, but we must also hold students accountable for the ethical use of the ideas and words of others.

Therefore, all teachers provide the instruction and scaffolding necessary for students to use ethical research practices. All students are expected to exercise good faith in the submission of research-based work and to document accurately. Regardless of how the information is used (summary, paraphrase, and quotation) or regardless of the format used (written, oral, or visual), plagiarism in any form is unethical and unacceptable.

To prevent plagiarism the teacher should provide:

• an assignment sheet for research-based projects with explicit requirements and directions

• a specific rubric for assessment of the process and the product

• checkpoints at intervals within the assignment to facilitate the research process, to assist students in time management, and to provide opportunities to help students during the process.

• assistance for students who are having difficulty with note-taking, documenting, or formatting procedures

• clear guidelines for acceptable help from human sources (peers, adults)

It is the student’s responsibility to:

• meet checkpoint deadlines

• ask questions and to seek help from teachers and librarian

• follow the HHHMS guidelines and MLA format per teacher direction (available online at HHHMS Library)

• use Works Cited pages accurately and appropriately

• submit an Acknowledgments page when requested, to credit help given by others (help that has been approved by teacher giving the assignment)

• submit only his/her own work

Administrative support:

• Upon confirmation of plagiarism the appropriate grade level administrator will establish a student file containing the referral, the parent letter or conference notes, and the plagiarized assignment in order to track any similar behavior.

Plagiarism includes:

• Direct copying of the work of another submitted as the student’s own (from that of another student or other person, from an Internet source, from a print source)

• Paraphrasing someone else’s work or ideas without crediting the source

• Documentation that does not check out or does not match the Works Cited/Works Consulted list.

• Work that suddenly appears on the final due date without a clear source (does not include checkpoint process requirements)

Consequences and Opportunity for Learning

• The teacher involved will confer with a principal or the librarian to confirm the teacher’s suspicion of plagiarism and to determine the options for the student to learn from his/her error in judgment. Upon confirmation of plagiarism, the teacher files a disciplinary referral, and has a conference with or writes a letter to the student and parents to explain the decision and its ramifications. A copy of this letter and the plagiarized assignment will be given to the grade level principal for the student’s file.

• Options include but are not limited to:

• A grade of zero. For instances of blatant, intentional plagiarism, no second opportunity to complete the assignment will be given.
• Redoing the project from an earlier checkpoint that was satisfactorily met (Ex.-A student who unintentionally plagiarized and who will benefit from the opportunity to complete the process correctly)
• Adding the appropriate documentation that is missing (Ex.-A student who has used a variety of sources and will benefit from the opportunity to add the necessary documentation.)

Notes:

• The student may choose not to take advantage of a second opportunity. If so, the zero stands.
• A student may have only one “second opportunity” offer in his/her middle school career.
• A second offense automatically earns a zero without redress.

3. The teacher will assess the “second opportunity” work. If satisfactory, the zero will be replaced by the lowest passing grade. If the work is unsatisfactory, the zero stands.
4. It is possible that a student will fail a course if s/he plagiarizes a project of sufficient weight. In this case, the student may attend summer school.

Adopted 3/4/04
HHHMS Site Council