Statement of Academic Integrity

The Port Angeles School District’s mission is to prepare each student to live, work, and learn successfully in a changing world.  The principles of academic integrity and honesty are central to the concept that creating life-long learners is the primary purpose of education. All teachers and administrators expect a student’s academic work to be original and solely produced by the student. The school district does not tolerate plagiarism, cheating or other forms of academic dishonesty.

At times teachers may have students work collaboratively on projects or assignments. This type of cooperative work is acceptable when it is teacher-directed.

Academic dishonesty is defined as an action, or attempted action, that intends to create an unfair academic advantage for oneself and/or an unfair academic advantage for another student. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to:

Plagiarism: Quoting text or other works on a paper or homework without citing the source, submitting an assignment procured from the internet, or submitting an assignment created by someone else that is claimed as one’s own work.

Cheating: Copying work from another student or from the internet, or giving one’s own work to another student to be copied; looking at another student’s work during an exam; looking at your notes when prohibited; giving another student answers to questions during an assessment; passing test information from an earlier class to a later class.

Fabricating: Intentional fabrication of information, data, research, or citations in assignments.

Collusion: Assisting another individual to commit academic dishonesty; working together on an assessment or assignment unless specifically allowed by the teacher; taking an assessment or completing an assignment for another student, or having another student take an assessment or complete and assignment for one’s self student; giving or selling an assignment to another student.

Technology Misconduct:  Taking an assessment out of the classroom unless specifically allowed (either in person or by using electronic means); using electronic devices to copy or share assessment materials; using online translation services and submitting those translations as one’s own work; using online searches to find answers to assessment questions; posting answers to assessment questions online.

Academic Misconduct: Intentional violation of school policies; changing an assessment or assignment, and claiming it had been graded incorrectly; an act or omission that is intended to deceive a staff member for academic advantage; lying to a staff member when confronted with allegations of academic dishonesty.