Nogales High School International Baccalaureate

Honor Code

“The true measure of a man’s character is gauged by the yardstick of what he would do knowing no one would ever find out.”      --Sir Thomas McCauley

The Rowland Unified School District highlights Integrity as its first core value.  Students enrolled in the IB program at Nogales High School are expected to maintain the highest standard of academic integrity.  While competition for grades is fierce and the course of study offered through IB is rigorous and demanding, intellectual dishonesty cannot be excused. 

Academic honesty, integrity and upstanding behavior are essential to the existence and growth of any academic community.  Each member of the learning community must maintain the highest standards of honesty and conduct so that the reputations of Nogales High School and the IB program are not compromised.

Students who are not totally honest in their academic work detract from the program in the following ways:

1. Dishonestly inflated grades ultimately and unfairly raise the cheater’s grade point and class rank, simultaneously lowering the rank of students who study.
2. They cause the class rankings of students to be flawed.
3. They distort the teacher’s perception of curriculum effectiveness and class progress.
4. They force the teacher to take actions not normally required in an honest climate. This reduces the amount of time spent on productive teaching and course preparation.
5. They diminish the credibility of the entire program.

Students who are mature enough to select a difficult and valuable program must also be mature enough to face a low grade when they have earned it.

Violation of the Honor Code will be handled in accordance with the Discipline Policy of Nogales High School.

The following is from the Handbook of Regulations for International Baccalaureate:

A5.2 What is academic misconduct?

There are a number of common ways in which academic misconduct occurs and these are outlined below. Coordinators should be aware of these when administering the DP and developing the school’s academic honesty policy.

A5.2.1 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as the representation, intentionally or unintentionally, of the ideas, words or work of another person without proper, clear and explicit acknowledgment. The IB uses plagiarism detection software to identify when this occurs. All candidates for the IB diploma are expected to acknowledge use of the work or ideas of another person in any work they may submit for assessment by using a standard style of referencing.

A5.2.2 Collusion

Coordinators need to be aware that candidates are expected to present assessments in their own words and acknowledge the words or ideas of others where collaboration has occurred. While group working is a key element in certain subjects, for example, sciences, collusion occurs when this goes beyond collaboration, for example, when a single version of a report is presented by a number of candidates as their own individual work.

Other forms of academic misconduct include:

• Duplicating work to meet the requirements of more than one assessment component
• Falsification or inventing fictitious data for an assignment
• Taking unauthorized material into an examination room
• Disruption of an examination by an act of misconduct, such as distracting another candidate or creating a disturbance
• Exchanging, supporting, or attempting to support, the passing on of information that is or could be related to the examination
• Failing to comply with the instructions of the invigilator or other member of the school’s staff responsible for the conduct of the examination
• Impersonating another candidate
• Theft of examination papers
• Disclosure or discussion of the content of an examination paper with a person outside the immediate school community within 24 hours after the examination
• Use of essay-writing services (ghost-written or purchased essays) offering assistance in writing essays or other assessment materials.
• Use of online translators in world language classes