At Grover Cleveland Middle School, we promote academic integrity as an essential element for the intellectual growth and academic success of our students. Therefore, it is expected that students will complete all assignments to the best of their personal ability and refrain from participating in unethical behaviors that involve academic dishonesty.

At GCMS, we expect that students will:

• Make every effort to complete their assignments on time and to their utmost potential.
• Ensure that their answers on all assignments and assessments are kept confidential and exclusive from their peers.
• Respect the learning environment at GCMS and be held accountable for their own choices, both positive and negative.
• Appropriately reference and cite all outside resources used to complete an assignment.
• Refrain from all acts of academic dishonesty, including cheating and plagiarism.

Examples of unacceptable and dishonest behavior include (but are not limited to):

• Copying homework or class assignments from another student (past or present) and submitting it as your own work.
• Using any unauthorized notes or an electronic device during an assessment.
• Sharing Google documents (unauthorized collaboration) with peers.
• Using language, words, or ideas from an outside source without proper citations.
• Copying answers from another student during an in-class assessment.
• Altering, destroying, or stealing work completed by other students.

If a student is found in violation of the Academic Integrity Policy outlined above:

• 1st offense - The student will be offered a retake or rewrite for the assignment for a maximum grade of 70%. The parents will be contacted and an administrative referral will be given for documentation.
  • Overnight homework assignments will receive a grade of zero (0%) for the first and every subsequent offense and cannot be made up for credit.
• 2nd offense - The student will receive a zero (0%) for the assignment and will not be given an opportunity to make up the credit lost. The parents will be contacted and an administrative referral will be given
• 3rd (and subsequent) offenses - The student will receive a zero (0%) for the assignment and will not be given an opportunity to make up the credit lost. The parents will be contacted and an administrative referral will be given.