Recently, more and more students have been talking about the honor code and cheating. MLHS has held student, parent, and teacher forums about the honor code. Some think that the honor code should be revised and made stricter, while others disagree. I sat down with Mr. Sánchez to get some more information about the honor code’s history and, perhaps more importantly, the honor code’s future.
Where can students find the honor code?
“The honor code was on our website last year. We’re going to put it back on. When we got to the new website, it didn’t migrate. We talked about how [teachers] should refer to it on the opening day of school and put it on their syllabus. Every student should have seen it on the first day of school. And, for the first time, because I wanted to really emphasize it, we put it on Final Forms. So students got to look at it again and parents had to sign off on it, too, which we’d never done.”
Do you think that most students read the honor code?
“I think we’re realizing that that’s maybe becoming like an iTunes “yes, I agree” kind of a thing. I would hope that [the honor code] is more embedded into the school, which is why we really talked with faculty members about it. And we really want not just to look at penalties but to focus on the positive aspect of the honor code. You know, there are pillars to the honor code—what we were talking about is, can we really connect the citizenship grade to the honor code? I have a suggestion for this summer that our summer reading be tied to the honor code so that the protagonists of a novel will be connected [to it] so that this way teachers can talk about [the honor code] in September.”
What can MLHS do so that more students read it?
“I think we’re going to also make it part of freshman orientation. We had it like that several years ago, but it was cut because it made freshmen orientation too long. We’re going to put it back in. But I also think what Dr. Azar is proposing is to do more of a K-12 approach, so, therefore, it’s something that will be built upon in lower grades even before students come to the high school. However, for high school students now, I do think it’s important that we talk about it. Several of our teachers who were here when [the honor code] was first created nearly fifteen years ago talked about how we had student “town halls” and teacher “town halls” and I think that’s something that we can begin again. We forget that most of our faculty have come [to MLHS] since the publication of the honor code. We want to make sure everyone’s vested in it, specifically our students.”
What is the difference between our code of conduct and honor code?
“It’s interesting that when it was first created it was separated. I think that is because they felt that the code of conduct is for disciplinary actions, when a school rule is broken. The honor code, on the other hand, was about character education. The consequences aren’t the same consequences that you would see if someone vandalized the school or was cutting a class. What we see instead are academic consequences that people can learn from. All the consequences are academic consequences, like grades. It’s also part of the idea of not having locks on our lockers. It talked about what it means to be a laker student, whereas the code of conduct is about behavior. Another difference is that we have to understand that honor code is especially confidential. Sometimes we do not see a consequence, but consequences are there. We can all walk by someone in a detention. We can all walk by someone in the library who has in-school suspension. No one has access to anyone’s grades. I think many students would even prefer to have the detention.”
Many schools don’t have an honor code, so why does MLHS have one?
“When we look at most schools, their academic integrity contract is part of the code of conduct. You would think it’s very lenient in comparison to ours. I know when looking at all of the work that was done to create the honor code, it was a way to differentiate Mountain Lakes from other schools. It was something that was unique; it was something where the students wanted to have ownership, where the teachers wanted to have ownership. It was part of an Accreditation for Growth Project, where the high school teachers and administrators would work together with students and parents for three to five years on a goal. It would culminate with something, and [the honor code] is what they wanted to focus on. They took questions and surveys. It was a very long process for several years. We’re trying to show people that this is not something that we can just change in a moment. We want to respect our colleagues who spent years on this. Even I was looking to revise [the honor code] last year because of smartwatches and AirPods. Those things have changed, but cheating hasn’t. But I do empathize with your generation more so than I do with the people I taught first twenty years ago. This pressure for college, I didn’t see twenty years ago. And it’s something I see here a lot and we have to get to the root cause of what cheating is. We always say we don’t judge people, but we judge the action and try to solve it. We think everyone can do better. They made a mistake. When we look at this, we wonder if these mistakes are because of the pressure of college, the pressure of getting into an honors class, of having too many AP classes.”
How is the honor code enforced?
“It’s been very consistent. One thing has been changed. As of about four or five years ago, the formal committee [of students and teachers] hasn’t been part of the process. Instead, the teacher involved and the supervisors meet to discuss the issue and therefore act as a council. But because the former council had students, there was concern whether this would violate confidentiality. We are looking to reestablish that again. I’ve never seen this committee in action because it was always confidential. So even though I was a senior administrator [at the time], I wasn’t principal so I didn’t know anything about that. But some of the teachers have brought up that sometimes the consequences weren’t done because the teachers and students met and said “well, maybe just counseling would count this time.” So actually I think now we are more strictly following [the honor code]. However, currently, all of the consequences are being followed as written.”
Can you talk a little bit about the recent student, parent, and teacher forums regarding the honor code?
“Last year we had two student forums focused on general issues and the code of conduct, and I meet monthly with parents. The parent forum was one of my parent meetings. Dr. Azar wanted to be part of it too to discuss if we’re doing anything K-12 and to get feedback from parents and to answer questions. It’s not just devoted to the honor code. It’s also devoted to the referendum and other updates.”
Were there any common themes at the forums?
“There were different themes. At the meeting with students, it seemed that, perhaps, the severity of consequences could be more strict. Parents—less so. Parents really question if students know what is cheating. And so we brought that up to students, who said “No! Of course, we know what cheating is!” Then, based on the parents’ suggestion, I gave teachers at our forum choices to decide which is cheating. Choice A was “I took the test period three, and I then told my friend period seven what was the extra credit question.” Choice B was “I let my friend look at my essay to see the formatting on Google Docs.” And it was incredible because some teachers said just A was cheating, and some teachers said all of the above are cheating. It’s very interesting for us to have that discussion. At one of the student forums, one of the kids brought that up as an example, saying that [telling another student the extra credit question] is not cheating. And I said, “Woah, that is cheating.” We all know that looking at someone’s test is cheating. But I was so impressed that one student said they share their essays all the time with friends to peer edit. I don’t want competitiveness among our students. I do want collaboration, so I don’t think that’s cheating. I know it happens a lot. You assign a group task in groups, and a teacher might say to hand it in to Canvas tonight. And then the teacher might say, “Oh, well they have the same answer. They copied each other.” Sometimes we’ll say, “Was it clear what is collaborative and what is individual?” We just always try to tell faculty to be clear about expectations, and that why we were saying this last year so it’s clear on everyone’s syllabus on the first day of school.”
How will the feedback from student, parent, and teacher forums be implemented?
“I took all of the notes and shared them with staff. We’ve asked for them to form a committee of people who are interested in helping us update the code of conduct and honor code. We’ve also collected honor codes, and there really aren’t any, from other schools too to see if there’s anything we want to use in language or updates. For example, in Rumson’s. It was a student who is absent always for quizzes. I would never think that’s an honor code violation, but they talk about it. So, even if it’s not consequences right away, it could be “Hey, this is what we’re noticing. You’re only absent on quizzes. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.” I think those are interesting things that weren’t in ours.”
Has there been a trend of more breaches in the honor code recently?
“No. It’s been very consistent. We looked at last year and this year, and it’s been consistent. We are getting more feedback from students about it, and that’s great. But the instances are the same. The key to the honor code is that it only works if the cases are reported because everything is confidential. And so, if a student has a violation of the honor code in ninth grade, it’s really important for the teacher to tell the administration so then we can keep track. So then two years from now, if another incident happens, the teacher doesn’t say: “well that person never did that before in my class.” True, but we have a record of it. For us, it’s not just to keep track. It’s to also provide counseling.”
As you can see, changing the honor code is a highly controversial topic and will, therefore, take time to address. In coming editions, The Mountaineer plans to voice MLHS students’ opinions about the honor code and to continue exploring this important issue. We represent you and we want to hear your voices. So stay tuned!
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