Academic Honor Policy

At Carver Middle School students are expected to be principled learners who show a high standard of academic honesty and submit work with integrity and honesty. The honor code has been developed to ensure each student has a clear understanding of what constitutes academic honesty, how to authenticate authorship, the meaning of intellectual property and a thorough understanding of the meaning of academic dishonesty.

Carver Middle School promotes academic honesty in all areas of study by teaching and supporting the skills required to appropriately cite references, acknowledge research and to collaborate effectively with peers. It is essential for students to be aware that honesty, authenticity of ideas and respect of intellectual property are attitudes expected of them for academic success.

Carver Middle School recognizes four types of academic malpractice as follows:

1.  Plagiarism: claiming ideas or work of another person as one’s own; including but not limited to excessive repetition or poor paraphrasing, improper citation
2.  Collusion: allowing one’s work to be copied or submitted by another and/or releasing information about an assessment to another person 
3.  Duplication: presenting the same work in different assessments 
4.  Other behaviors such as falsification (purchasing and/or submitting pieces of written work by someone else, misrepresenting information dishonestly, or forgery of a parent signature) and digital devices (any cell phone and/or electronic device used during a test, quiz, exam, or other testing environment as designated by the teacher)

At Carver Middle School we recognize the pledge:

“I declare that all the work I submit will be my own authentic work.
If I am unsure about whether something constitutes malpractice, I
will consult my teacher before turning in the work.”


In the event of misconduct there will be the following consequences:

Level 1: First-time offense which will be treated as a teachable moment. The work will be disregarded and must be re-written and re-submitted for grading. Parents/ guardians will be notified by the teacher, and the Dean/IB Coordinator will be informed.

Level 2:     Second offense will result in a failing grade for the work. Parents/ guardians will be notified by the teacher who will inform the Dean/IB Coordinator. Student conference with the Dean/IB Coordinator.

Level 3:     Third and subsequent offenses will result in a failing grade for the work. Parents/ guardians and the student will be required to meet with Dean/IB Coordinator. One day in PASS.

*Honors students may be removed from Honors Classes after the third offense and may be placed on academic probation.
*IB students may be removed from the IB program after the third offense and may be placed on academic probation.

Each academic year the slate is wiped clean and students begin with a zero offense. At Carver Middle School we believe every student has the opportunity to succeed and we wish to provide a positive learning environment in which a student will learn from failure and experience personal growth and development. We also believe in positive affirmation and provide students the opportunity to begin each academic year with a fresh start in which to strive for academic and personal success.

All teachers are required to promote academic honesty and ensure all students understand what constitutes malpractice. This will be explicitly included in the teacher rules and expectations for students at the beginning of the academic year and ongoing. It is essential that approaches to learning are promoted and developed and that students develop good time-management and planning skills to ensure that a student avoids the temptation to involve malpractice.