The Saint Ignatius community expects academic honesty and integrity of all its students. The members of the Saint Ignatius community, both faculty and students, expect that students will assume responsibility for their own learning and honestly demonstrate the breadth and depth of that learning.
The educational program at Saint Ignatius stresses not only the acquisition of skills and knowledge but also the formation of a moral consciousness. Students explore the ethical and moral implications of many issues, yet no issue is more important for exploration than the student's own individual honesty and integrity. The faculty and students should commit themselves to this exploration. It is the responsibility of the faculty to call the students to moral behavior - to honesty and integrity. It is the responsibility of the students to learn moral and ethical principles and to live according to them.
All students’ work—homework, notes, quizzes, tests, essays, group projects, research papers, lab reports—should be a product of their own effort. To offer someone else’s work—whether a student or not—as if it were one’s own is dishonest. Such behaviors as copying homework, taking information from another during a quiz or test, and plagiarizing (presenting another’s writing or ideas as your own) constitute serious lapses in moral judgment.
Assisting a person to be dishonest is also a moral lapse. To supply another with one’s homework to be copied so that the other student can submit it as his/her own, to supply information to another during a quiz or test, and to write a paper for another are violations of the norm of moral behavior. Obviously, to steal a quiz or a test and/or to share the information from a stolen quiz or test is morally reprehensible. If a student has an electronic device that can store or communicate information in a testing area, this shall be a violation of academic integrity as well as a regular violation.
The rewards for academic honesty are a sense of personal accomplishment, self-esteem, and self-respect in addition to the knowledge gained. The consequences of academic dishonesty are both academic and disciplinary.
Any student offering someone else's work—whether a fellow student’s or another person’s—as if it were one's own may receive a zero for that assignment. Any student assisting another student to be dishonest may receive a zero. The teacher will complete a dishonesty referral to the Assistant Principal for Academic Programs.
- For a first offense, the Assistant Principal will notify the student's Guidance Counselor, write a letter to the parents, and speak to the student to explain the seriousness of this lapse and the consequences of a recurrence.
- For a second offense, the Assistant Principal will have a conference with the parents, Guidance Counselor, and the student and place the student on probation.
- For a third offense within a student's academic career at Saint Ignatius, the Assistant Principal for Academic Programs may recommend a Discipline Board hearing. The Board will impose appropriate sanctions ranging from suspension to withdrawal from a course with an "F" to expulsion.
A student caught stealing a quiz or a test and/or sharing the stolen information will appear before the Discipline Board for a hearing. The Board will recommend appropriate sanctions which may include expulsion from school.