Hillcrest High School Honor Code
Hillcrest High School expects all students be honest in academic matters. The faculty and administration are dedicated to maintaining an academic environment that is impartial, rewarding genuine achievement and true scholastic advancement. We believe that academic dishonesty compromises this environment. We also believe that cheating is an individual choice and that students who cheat are responsible for their actions and the consequences.
Hillcrest High School students are required to refrain from all forms of academic dishonesty: cheating, plagiarizing, lying, and other dishonorable conduct.
Cheating includes but is not limited to:
• Copying someone else’s class work, homework, quizzes, other graded work or tests.
• Giving one’s own work to someone else
• Looking on someone else’s paper or test and/or allowing them to look on your paper or test.
• Asking, receiving, or telling information about all or part of a quiz or test
• Using unauthorized test aids such as cheat sheets and calculators
• Using electronic devices such as pagers, cell phones, laptops, and MP3 players for the purpose of cheating
• Working together on a take-home assignment unless the teacher specifically gives permission to do so.
• Attempted cheating of any kind
Plagiarism includes but is not limited to:
• Presenting as one’s own the works or the opinions of someone else without proper acknowledgement.
• Borrowing the sequence of ideas, the arrangement of material, or the pattern of thought of someone else without proper acknowledgement.
• Using material on the internet and passing it as one’s own work
• Having a parent or another person write an essay or do a project which is then submitted as one’s own work
• Failing to use proper documentation in a bibliography.
• Making up data or citing nonexistent sources.
Lying includes but is not limited to:
• Making any statement one knows is untrue or false.
• Signing an Honor Pledge when one knows he should not.
• Forging a signature.
• Feigning illness to gain extra preparation time for tests, quizzes, or assignments due.
• Changing one’s grade, such as by tampering with computer records including report cards and progress reports.
• Knowingly helping a student violate any part of this code.
Consequences for the First/Second Offense
• Score of zero on the test, paper, or assignment
• Notification of parent by the teacher
• Office referral
• Notification of the appropriate coach, National Honor Society sponsor, Beta Club sponsor, Renaissance sponsor, and/or other extracurricular activity sponsor with a recommendation that the student be sanctioned
Consequences for Three or More Subsequent Offenses
• Score of zero on the test, paper, or assignment
• Notification of parent by the teacher
• Office referral
• Removal from any organization, team, or group that represents Hillcrest High School for the remainder of the school year, including athletic teams, academic teams, band competitions, and pageants
• Notation on the student’s permanent record and official transcript
• Loss of positive recommendation from counselor and teachers
Statement of Understanding
At the beginning of the school year, students will sign a statement verifying that they understand the honor code, they will share the honor code with their parents, and they will sign the following honor pledge for each major assignment.
“I pledge that the work I am submitting is 100% my own.”