How do You Define Cheating?

In its meeting last Wednesday, Council began discussing changes to the school’s Academic Integrity Policy. These changes would alter the policy to remove mandatory reporting of the incident to colleges if the student in question decided to go through Restorative Justice.  As the discussion progressed, it became clear that the term “cheating” was not clearly defined. The Broadside decided to ask students of every grade how they would define cheating. Based on the results of our survey,  it seems that most everyone has a different definition of cheating  and that nobody knows the exact definition in the student handbook. Many students believe that cheating can only happen on tests or exams and that cheating on homework does not count as cheating. However, the Student handbook defines cheating, as “any activity in which a student deliberately misrepresents his or her actual academic achievement.”

I sat down with Mr. Smith last week to discuss cheating at HHS and his thoughts on the motion are currently being discussed in Council. He believes that the proposed motion and subsequent discussion is very important. He says that cheating is a blunt term and can come in different shades of gray; it is not black and white. Mr. Smith also believes that the new motion with Restorative Justice will allow for learning opportunities for violators of the Academic Integrity Policy .

The discussion about the proposed Academic Integrity Revisions will continue in Council this week on Wednesday. Given that this affects the whole school,  I strongly urge everyone  to participate in the discussion.