5505 – ACADEMIC HONESTY
The Board values honesty and expects integrity in the District’s students. Violating academic honesty expectations erodes the trust between teachers and students as well as compromises the academic standing of other students. So that each student learns the skills being taught and is judged solely on their own merits, the Board prohibits any student from presenting someone else’s work as their own, using artificial intelligence platforms in place of one’s own work, providing unauthorized assistance to another student, and cheating in any manner.
All school work submitted for the purpose of meeting course requirements must be the individual student’s original work or the original work of a group of students for group projects. It is prohibited for any student to unfairly advance their own academic performance or that of any other student. Likewise, no student may intentionally limit or impede the academic performance or intellectual pursuits of other students.
Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to:
- plagiarism (of ideas, work, research, speech, art, music, etc.);
- forgery of another’s work;
- presenting the results that are the product of an artificial intelligence (AI) platform as one’s own, where the use of AI was not specifically allowed by the teacher as part of the assignment ;
- downloading or copying information from other sources and presenting it as one’s own;
- using language translation work of someone else or using technology when the expectation is doing one’s own translation;
- copying another person’s work;
- allowing another person to copy one’s own work;
- stealing another person’s work;
- doing another person’s work for them;
- distributing copies of one’s work for use by others;
- distributing copies of someone else’s work for use by others for academic gain or advantage;
- intentionally accessing another’s work for the purpose of presenting it as one’s own for academic gain or advantage;
- distributing or receiving answers to assignments, quizzes, tests, assessments, etc.
- distributing or receiving questions from quizzes, tests, assessments, etc.
Staff and Administration have the responsibility for monitoring students’ work for compliance with this policy.
When enrolled in Advanced Placement (AP), Start College Now, Early College Credit Programs (ECCP), Start College Now, or any other third-party, District-sponsored programming, students are expected to follow the corresponding policies and guidelines regarding the use of AI/NLP.
All teachers, beginning in the elementary grades, will educate students as to what constitutes academic dishonesty and what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in District schools regarding academic integrity.
Students who violate this policy are subject to disciplinary consequences.
Teachers are authorized, in consultation with their Principal, to apply appropriate consequences for violations of this policy. Disciplinary consequences for significant violations may include removal from the class with a failing grade, removal from student leadership positions, elimination of honors recognition, loss of membership in honor organizations, as well as other disciplinary consequences appropriate to the nature of the violation.
Parents shall be contacted as soon as practicable to report any alleged acts of academic dishonesty by their child.
Repeated violations of this policy at the high school level will result in additional disciplinary consequences, up to and including suspension and expulsion.
Student and/or parent appeals of disciplinary consequences resulting from violation of this policy may be made within five (5) business days to the Principal, whose decision shall be final. If the Principal was the staff member responsible for the disciplinary consequence being appealed, then student and/or parent appeals should be directed within five (5) business days to the Building Principal, whose decision shall be final.
A summary of this policy shall be included in the Student Handbook and the Employee Handbook.
Revised 10/23/24
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