CNG Code of Honor & Disciplinary Policy

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AT CNG

Integrity and Responsibility are two of CNG’s most important Core Values. As a college-preparatory educational institution, CNG has the moral obligation to teach academic integrity and develop in our students a strong sense of ethical responsibility. As a K4-12 academic institution, we are both teaching these values and ensuring developmentally appropriate learning related to these important skills. The following three reasons highlight the importance of educating our students on their responsibilities to uphold academic integrity:

  1. CNG must model the core value of academic integrity reflective of high- quality academic institutions.

  2. CNG must prepare students for the high-stakes consequences for academic dishonesty at universities.

  3. CNG strives to provide an ethical education for life, especially given the extensive research linking academic dishonesty to increased workplace dishonesty.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY POLICY

Academic dishonesty is a Serious or Grave offense at CNG because it represents a form of stealing with resulting ethical and moral implications. With Integrity and Responsibility designated as Core Values at CNG, we strive as a school to conduct ourselves with integrity and to model the CNG Core Values to prepare students for school, university, and workplace life. We are committed to teach developmentally appropriate research skills as well as work with students on integrity and responsibility as related to school (and life) experience.

Academic Dishonesty: CNG has developed a multi-faceted definition of academic dishonesty consisting of one or more of the following:

• taking and/or copying answers from others and/ or willingly giving answers to others;

• cheating and/or attempting to cheat;

• using, taking, buying, selling, giving, soliciting and/or coercing answers or information, and/or distributing photos or photocopies of any form of assessment and/or answers to an administered test, project, or other assignment;

• falsifying academic records, resumes, applications,research data, laboratory reports, and/or other academic work;

• misrepresentation of facts, which includes being absent without an acceptable reason and then requesting and/or receiving a postponement/extension for the purpose of obtaining academic benefit;

• taking, keeping, misplacing, or damaging another student’s work in order to receive a financial or academic advantage to one’s self or another;

• providing false and/or misleading information in an effort to harm another student academically or financially;

• presenting any type of plagiarized material as one’s own academic work for course credit and/ or toward the requirements for a degree;

• plagiarism can involve obtaining, taking, buying, gifting, and/or receiving a gift and presenting that work as one’s own academic work for any school assignment or assessment;

• plagiarism includes the use of words, lyrics, ideas, illustrations/graphics, and other expressions not attributed to the original source, including those obtained from the unauthorized use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools;

• plagiarism includes the unauthorized collaboration and/or collusion with another person in preparing homework, formative and summative assessments, and other work for a course.

Academic Dishonesty goes against CNG’s Code of Honor and Disciplinary Policy. All referrals for Academic Dishonesty will be documented in Skyward with follow up by administration. Due to our belief in the importance of learning, students will be required to demonstrate knowledge/learning of the skills by redoing the assignment or an alternative assignment. Following a thorough investigation, once determined to be a case of Academic Dishonesty, the following consequences will be applied on a cumulative basis for all incidents at respective building level:

1. First Infraction – A zero will be put in the Skyward gradebook for the test or assignment, parents will be notified, student reflection/ conversation with administration, detention and/or suspension will be assigned. A student may also be placed on Behavior Advise- ment depending on the developmental level, seriousness of the infraction, and/or previous behavioral record. In addition, students in cocurricular activities may face other consequences as determined by the administration.

2. Second Infraction – A zero will be put in the Skyward gradebook for the test or assignment, a parent conference, a suspension will be assigned, and the student will be placed on Behavior Advisement or Probation based on the school’s policy of progressive discipline and the consequence assigned for the First Infraction. In addition, students in co-curricular activities will face added consequences related to restrictions in participation in order to focus on academics.

3. Third Infraction – A zero will be put in the Skyward gradebook for the test or assignment, a parent conference, a multiple-day suspension will be assigned, and the student will be placed on Behavior Probation and/or Matriculation Hold with the consequence of possible non-matriculation depending on previous infractions and their cumulative behavioral record. In addition, students in co- curricular activities will face additional consequences which may include restrictions to practice, participation in games, tournaments, or special events, and/or exclusion from CWW participation based on the school’s probation and matriculation hold protocols.

Records – In all cases, the offense will be recorded in the student’s disciplinary file in Skyward and for students at the High School, cases will be reported to colleges/universities if required by the institutions as part of their standard admission process.

Connection to Future – Students and parents must understand that academic dishonesty at the university level may result in expulsion from that university.

Teacher Responsibility – Teachers will make referrals for all cases of Academic Dishonesty through Skyward. They will ensure that students are aware of the importance of academic honesty and the potential consequences for cases of dishonesty. Teachers will also ensure that students are taught about how to conduct research in an
appropriate manner demonstrating integrity for their own thoughts and ideas as well as acknowledging and documenting them correctly. All formal writing pieces in grades 7-12 will be submitted through Turn it In.com for initial review for plagiarism.

Resources for Avoiding Plagiarism

• Turn it In.com
• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) - https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/purdue_owl.html 

• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) Research and Citation Resources -https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/resources.html

• This also includes links for conducting research, using research, APA Style, MLA Style, Chicago Manual of Style and American Medical Association (AMA) Style.

• Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA (Writing Program Administrators) Statement on Best Practices - http://wpacouncil.org/po- sitions/WPAplagiarism.pdfApp

Examples of Colleges and Universities fully aligned to these three central reasons

1. CNG must model the core value of academic integrity reflective of high-quality academic institutions.

• “Integrity is the foundation of the academic experience at Harvard College...Cheating on exams or problem sets, plagiarizing or misrepresenting the ideas or language of someone else as one’s own, falsifying data, or any other instance of academic dishonesty violates the standards of our community, as well as the standards of the wider world of learning and affairs.” - Harvard University website
•  “Purdue University values intellectual integrity and the highest standards of academic conduct. To be prepared to meet societal needs as leaders and role models, students must be educated in an ethical learning environment that promotes a high standard of honor in scholastic work. Academic dishonesty undermines institutional integrity and threatens the academic fabric of Purdue University. Dis- honesty is not an acceptable avenue to success. It diminishes the quality of a Purdue education.” - Purdue University website.

2. CNG must prepare students for the high- stakes consequences for academic dishonesty at universities.

•  “The standard sanction for a first offense (of academic dishonesty) includes a one-quarter suspension from the University and 40 hours of community service. In addition, most faculty members issue a “No Pass” or “No Credit” for the course in which the violation occurred.” - Stanford University website
• “Level II sanctions (for academic dis- honesty) may include, but are not limited to: 1) any sanctions for Level I violations; 2) course grade of F; 3) course grade of F being permanently calculated into the Grade Point Average; 4) exclusion from activities such as study abroad, honors societies and programs, and varsity athletics; 5) suspension from Bentley University; 6) expulsion from Bentley University.” - Bentley University website

3. CNG strives to provide an ethical education for life, especially given the extensive research linking academic dishonesty to increased workplace dishonesty.

•  “Results suggest that there is a clear connection between cheating in high school and a positive decision to cheat in a specific scenario in college. In addition, frequent cheaters in high school also reported being more likely to decide to violate workplace policies.” -Does academic dishonesty relate to unethical behavior in professional practice? An exploratory study. Harding, Trevor & Carpenter, D & Finelli, Cynthia & Passow, Honor (2004).

  • “The fostering of an environment that dissuades students from plagiarism, in which “cheating” is eliminated and creativity and aca- demic honesty, in all its forms, is promoted, is of the utmost importance. In every case, the academic institution should implement measures to dissuade poor conduct amongst its students; in not doing so, the institution is encouraging its students to transfer to their professional careers the same deceitful behavior, which is highly detrimental to the collective interests of society.” - Academic Dishonesty. Sousa, Conti, Salles, Mussel (2016).

  • “This research demonstrates that cheating is prevalent and that some forms of cheating have increased dramatically in the last 30 years. This research also suggests that although both individual and contextual factors influence cheating, contextual factors, such as students’ perceptions of peers’ behavior, are the most powerful influence. In addition, an institution’s academic integrity programs and policies, such as honor codes, can have a significant influence on students’ behavior.” - Cheating in Academic Institutions: A Decade of Research. McCabe, Tre- vino, Butterfield (2010).