El Cerrito High School English Department Policies
The English Department will be implementing the following policies in every class:
MLA Format
All assignments will be formatted following MLA guidelines. All teachers will teach MLA format to their classes this year. Next year, MLA format will be taught in 9th grade classes and reviewed in following years. All students will be expected to adhere to these guidelines. Assignments that are turned in which do not follow these guidelines will either not be accepted or will lose points. The number of points docked will be up to the individual teacher.
Plagiarism
All instances of plagiarism, whether students have copied from each other or from other sources like the internet, will earn a grade of F (individual teachers will determine what percentage that F will be) and will lose the right to make up that assignment. Additionally, the following school-wide policies will be followed:
Late Work/Make Up Work/Extra Credit
Late work, defined here as an assignment turned in by a student after the due date, will not be accepted unless the student has made arrangements prior to the due date or if the absence is excused. In this case, a new due date will be set by the teacher, possibly with input from the student.
Make up work, defined here as an assignment created by the teacher to replace a missed assignment, will not be given as students will be expected to be responsible enough to complete the assignments of a course by the due date. One exception to this rule will be in instances where a student has an excused absence but, upon returning, the original assignment that they have the right to make up (see late work policy) is no longer timely or relevant to the current work. The teacher can modify the original assignment in a way that fairly assesses the student on the same concept/skill in as close to the same way as other students as possible. Any points earned on this make up assignment will be applied to the missed assignment. If this is not feasible, the teacher can simply excuse the missed assignment.
Extra credit, defined here as assignments that allow students to earn additional points on top of the assignments already given but do not replace previous assignments, will be up to the individual teacher.