What HDSB Students Need to Know About…

Meeting Timelines & Academic Honesty

Our Goals

• All students will demonstrate the learning skills and work habits required to responsibly  complete their work and meet deadlines.

• All students will demonstrate academic honesty when completing their work.

• Schools will instruct, monitor and remediate the learning skills students require to responsibly complete their work and meet deadlines.

What are your responsibilities?

• Keep a schedule of your responsibilities, evaluation timelines and due dates. 

• Work with your teachers to manage your timelines to meet your responsibilities.

• Demonstrate academic honesty by doing and handing in your own work and following the rules provided for all tasks, tests and assignments.

How will students be supported?

Your teachers...

• help you to develop the learning skills and work habits you need to demonstrate so you can successfully manage and meet due dates.

• emphasize the importance of the responsible completion of work and academic honesty.

• clearly communicate the timelines and due dates for evaluations.

• monitor your progress toward meeting due dates.

• support your achievement by teaching you:

  • how to use planning and organizational tools needed to complete tasks;

  • how to manage the details of big projects and tasks;

  • how to responsibly manage your workload and responsibilities when you have many important responsibilities and assignments (both in and out of school).

• share expectations for academic honesty when each evaluation is being introduced. 

What Happens If You Miss a Deadline?

If you miss a deadline, your teachers will follow these steps to support you getting your work done:

1. Conference with you to help you make a plan to get the work handed in, understand what happened, and think about how you can learn from the experience so it does not happen again.

2. Set up a contract with you (either verbal or written) that sets out the closure date (the very last date this work will be accepted) for missing work.

3. Your teacher will make sure your parents or guardians know that you have not handed in work and that it is having an impact on your achievement.

4. Your teacher will contact other people in the school (guidance, student success, etc.) to let them know that missing work is impacting your achievement and to see what support they can provide you.

 Completing your work and meeting deadlines matters.

Your teachers might use some of the following additional strategies to help you get your work done if they think they might help you to be more successful:

• • • require you to complete the work at a different time;  

    • work with your parents to help you get your work completed and handed in;

    • speak with you to better understand the circumstances and special considerations that might be affecting how you complete and hand in your work;

    • in grades 9-12, deduct a grade penalty of 5% per school day; 

    • ask you to demonstrate your understanding in a different way than was originally planned

    • monitor, document and seek to continuously improve your understanding and demonstration of academic honesty. 

How Will We Ensure Academic Honesty?

1. Keep track of incidences of cheating and plagiarism, and keep trying to improve how well you and other students in your school understand and demonstrate academic honesty.

2. If you have not met the Board’s expectation of academic honesty a consequence will be applied which will help you to understand the vital importance of academic honesty and the seriousness of dishonest behaviour. The consequence will take into account the circumstances, your grade, the course you’re in, your maturity, how important the evaluation is and whether you have had previous incidents of academic dishonesty.

What Happens If A Teacher Believes You Have Plagiarized or Cheated?

If your teacher believes you have plagiarized or cheated your teacher will:

1. Discuss and explain the evidence of cheating and/or plagiarism in your work to ensure the you understand why your academic honesty is being questioned;

2. Inform your parent(s)/guardian(s) and/or refer you to your principal or vice-principal who will decide on an appropriate consequence;

3. Apply an appropriate consequence;

4. School administration will keep a record of the cheating or plagiarism and take into account previous problems if you are found to have cheated or plagiarised again.

Cheating and plagiarism are serious issues.

Consequences that may be applied to encourage the honest completion of work:

• supervise you while you to redo the work (or alternative work);

• discuss with your principals and assign a grade penalty up to the full value of the assignment;

• discuss the issues with other people in the school (guidance, student success, etc.) to problem solve and help ensure this will not happen again;

• limit your eligibility for school awards; 

• suspend you; 

• assign other consequences for your behaviour as appropriate.

Final 30% Evaluations Are Important

As with any learning, if you do not attend or complete part of your Final 30% evaluation, or it is determined that you have plagiarized or cheated on a part of the Final 30% evaluation, then the consequence will take into account your grade and pathway, your maturity, the number and frequency of previous incidents; and your individual circumstances. 

The consequences may include but are not limited to:

• requiring you to complete the work at a different time under supervision;

• in consultation with your principal, for a student in grades 9-12 who is determined to have been absent without an approved reason or to have plagiarized or cheated on a Final 30% evaluation, a mark of zero may be assigned and used as part of your final grade.

Click here for Official HDSB A&E Administrative Procedures