Statement of Wolverine Honor

I am entrusted with the responsibility of upholding and contributing to an atmosphere of mutual respect, honesty, and fairness. My personal honor is essential to preserve my good name and the integrity of the West Potomac Community.

Pledge

I will neither plagiarize nor give/receive unauthorized aid on any test, quiz, research paper, lab or any other student-generated work.

The WPHS 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.
• Using any kind of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for assignments unless specifically allowed for a portion of any assignment.
• Having access to a phone or any other device with access to the internet, phone, or ability to take photos during a testing situation is not allowed.

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.
• Using AI for assignments.

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 WPHS Honor Code includes the following responsibilities:

Students are obligated to:

• Learn and understand the WPHS 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.
• Do not use AI for assignments unless specifically authorized.

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 WPHS Honor Code policy including the progression of intervention.
• Present, uphold and enforce consistently the WPHS Honor Code.
• Teach or review the correct use of sources when assigning work, and specifically authorize any use of AI on assignments (the default is that AI is not authorized). 
• Teach students summarization of material and the distinction between summarizing and copying straight from the text.
• 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 completing the Honor Code form.
• Report any violation via the Honor Code Referral Form (which should be logged for each instance of Honor Code violation).

Administrators are obligated to:

• Learn and understand the WPHS Honor Code policy including the process for finding the submissions and the progression of intervention.
• Present and uphold the WPHS Honor Code consistently with each child.
• Implement fully the progression of interventions. 
• Maintain a written record of Honor Code violations in student discipline folders and log the violation in SIS.
• Lead the appeal process.