FCPS forbids student showing homework to another student?

[Anonymous]

Something like this happened to a friend of mine in high school. She didn't realize that some papers had fallen out of her notebook in a hallway. Some other kids who had the same class later in the day picked up the papers and a number of kids copied her homework assignment. The teacher thought my friend had given it to them and my friend was going to be punished along with the copiers. Luckily, someone saw the boys when they found the papers who came forward and told the teacher.

It has always been wrong to share completed work with others. Why would one kid ask another to see already completed homework? It's probably a good lesson to learn now while your child is young rather than when she's in college. It is a hard lesson to learn this way. I hope she can move forward and be even more successful in the future.

[Anonymous]

An 11th grader should know better than this. My 6th grader knows better than this. Collaboration is one thing. But why did DD think that someone wanted her to hand over a homework assignment a week before it was due? Not sit down together and work out a math problem, or brainstorm together, but just hand over an assignment? Maybe your DC is unbelievably naive. But it sounds like she gave into peer pressure to yes-- help another child cheat. Just hope the HS does not report this to colleges.

[Anonymous]

Yes. There is a policy in FCPS against doing exactly what your DC did. And yes, one listed consequence is an F. Sorry, your DC screwed up.

http://www.fcps.edu/madisonhs/students/documents/honorcode.pdf

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for views, and especially 10:10 who gave a copy of the honor code for Madison HS.

I am beginning to understand more from the perspective of the school and other parents. Lesson learned.

[Anonymous]

I was always taught growing up that if you allow someone to see your work and they cheat, you are just as guilty as they are. We were taught to do our own work and that it was our responsibility to make sure others did not copy our work. A junior in high school should know this.

[Anonymous]

Rule? No. It is probably discretionary and they probably determined that your daughter intentionally cheated or should have known she was contributing to cheating. I think the F is an overreaction but unless she is really young, it is common sense. Studying with someone is different than "hey can I have your homework?" "sure, no questions asked!"

I would argue against the F for the whole quarter but use this as a learning opportunity for your DD.

[Anonymous]

This is about HOMEWORK? My view is that the action the school took is over the top. It is one thing to cheat on a test by copying someone else’s work. But HOMEWORK? The purpose of homework is to gain practice in learning certain skills and concepts. If someone copied your daughter’s homework, the one that loses is the person who copied it.

And, as for the Madison HS honor code - maybe I missed it, but where does it address HOMEWORK?

I would begin by asking the school what the purpose of homework is. Is it graded? If it is, that is interesting because I would wonder how the school knows WHO completed the homework. If the parent helped the student, then who is really getting the grade - the parent or the student? How can the school know, for certain, if the student actually completed the homework independently, thus earning the grade he/she is given.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks. Your objective opinions are appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Sorry for the confusion. No I am not an AP, I was responding to the question of who told me about the rule.

Thanks for the feed backs. I want to hear your opinions and perspectives. Please keep them coming.

I feel that my DD was not defensive enough to protect herself against something like this. But kids are kids and do things without thinking through all the possibilities. DD said she would not have send a copy of HW to her classmate if she knew or could even imagine there is a possibility that her classmate would just copy it. She just wanted the other kid to see how it can be done, learning the concept but not copying. There is absolutely no benefit for DD to help, but she tried to help.

I may be at fault as well if there is such a rule and I have never heard of it. Within the scope of cheating where A and B both intend for one of them to cheat, I can understand. But I am still struggling with the idea that B can be deemed cheating if A secretly copied B. So is there a presumption that if B let A to see the homework, B is deemed to know that A would cheat?

I want to know what is the path forward if that is the case, should I tell my kids to never let another kid see their HW before it is due? This is different from when I was growing up when helping each other to understand the HW and may be work together was a good thing.

If I need to adjust, I think I will. Thanks for feed back.

I'm the PP who asked if you were an AP.

At my school, there is time spend in the Freshmen homerooms talking about various scenarios and coaching. The kids are taught:

Doing homework together is fine, unless a teacher has specifically asked that an assignment be done alone. But each kid needs to work through each problem. That is you can discuss the answers together, but you can't say "I'll do evens, you do odds".

Helping a student, by giving hints or reminding them of a strategy, or showing them where you got the information, is all OK. Helping a student by letting them copy is not.

Studying together from completed homework, is fine. If you've done your HW, and so is your friend, and you want to study together from the notes, that's great.

Kids are told that one option when a friend asks to see your homework, or tell them what you got on question 5 is to say "I can't show you mine, but I can help? What are you having trouble with?"

But allowing someone to copy isn't "helping them understand" or "working together", so I'm not sure I understand the bolded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is about HOMEWORK? My view is that the action the school took is over the top. It is one thing to cheat on a test by copying someone else’s work. But HOMEWORK? The purpose of homework is to gain practice in learning certain skills and concepts. If someone copied your daughter’s homework, the one that loses is the person who copied it.

And, as for the Madison HS honor code - maybe I missed it, but where does it address HOMEWORK?

I would begin by asking the school what the purpose of homework is. Is it graded? If it is, that is interesting because I would wonder how the school knows WHO completed the homework. If the parent helped the student, then who is really getting the grade - the parent or the student? How can the school know, for certain, if the student actually completed the homework independently, thus earning the grade he/she is given.

Yes, sometimes in MS and HS homework counts for a chunk of the grade. Think less nightly math homework, and more a math project. For example, in Algebra last year, my DC was given lists of equations that became lines, and then based on this underlying pattern, had to add more lines of his own, come up with the equations for those lines, and create a picture that he colored in. A great, creative way to learn this concept. They were given a couple weeks to do this-- at home, and it carried about as much weight as a unit test. If OP's child had completed the homework a week out, it sounds like it falls more into this long term project category and less into routine nightly homework, which is usually just checked for completion.

And no, the school probably had no way of know whether he did this himself (he did). The same way that they have no way of knowing whether he really practiced his instrument when I sign practice logs and he turns them in. Hence the honor code. But if I had done the work for him, then he wouldn't have learned the concept, and would have bombed the unit test. So in the end, there would still have been a consequence.

[Anonymous]

10:50, OP here. Yes, it was HW, even though the school tried to characterized it later as a "HW test". I think that was BS, it was marked as HW on the report card and DD's classmates thought it was HW.

I think the first example they gave in the Madison honor code under Cheating "Copying or allowing others to copy information from someone else's work, test, homework..." covers homework.

What I struggled with the missing element of "allowing". DD did not allow and did not expect someone would copy, and I believe her. She is someone who has no problem in admitting her mistake if there is one. Many views expressed here indicated DD should have known better that by giving out the information, she should have expected someone would copy it. That was the part that I did not consider before, neither was DD.

I need to have a talk with my kids to teach them to be more defensive. It may made them start to distant themselves from their friends and classmates, but if that is what is needed, I will consider it.

11:01, I think what I keep struggling with is whether there need to have "knowledge and/or intent" to "allowing" to occur. If DD's classmate said, can I copy yours and DD showed HW, then that is clearly allowing. If DD said you can see but you cannot copy, then there were no "allowing". What I seem to hear is that many here believe if DD showed it to someone, then the action itself is already a violation of the honor code and is deemed cheating, no knowledge nor intent is needed. I am just struggling to understand the concept.

I hear many here said they were told of this in earlier grades. I obviously did not go to those classes, but I have no reason to doubt it. On the other hand, DD did not know. Was she naive? perhaps. Does she deserve to have her grade destroyed? I have mixed feelings.

[Anonymous]

OP,

Perhaps your DD is naive and got burned. I assume by the nature of what you have written that this was some sort of writing assignment--history or English. Her friend must have pretty much copied verbatim in order for the teacher to realize she had copied.

Perhaps your DD just thought her friend wanted a sample--but more likely, she was afraid of antagonizing her friend. I remember in college when the attractive young man sitting next to me in class (and with whom I had been friendly) asked me to "help" him on a test. I said "no"--but he never spoke to me after that. That's tough for an eleventh grader to lose a friend over something like that. I was taught very early never to do this.

This is a good lesson learned for your DD. This is only a grade. If this happened in college, she would likely be kicked out. My DS knew someone who was kicked out for this. They let him come back a year later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10:50, OP here. Yes, it was HW, even though the school tried to characterized it later as a "HW test". I think that was BS, it was marked as HW on the report card and DD's classmates thought it was HW.

I think the first example they gave in the Madison honor code under Cheating "Copying or allowing others to copy information from someone else's work, test, homework..." covers homework.

What I struggled with the missing element of "allowing". DD did not allow and did not expect someone would copy, and I believe her. She is someone who has no problem in admitting her mistake if there is one. Many views expressed here indicated DD should have known better that by giving out the information, she should have expected someone would copy it. That was the part that I did not consider before, neither was DD.

I need to have a talk with my kids to teach them to be more defensive. It may made them start to distant themselves from their friends and classmates, but if that is what is needed, I will consider it.

11:01, I think what I keep struggling with is whether there need to have "knowledge and/or intent" to "allowing" to occur. If DD's classmate said, can I copy yours and DD showed HW, then that is clearly allowing. If DD said you can see but you cannot copy, then there were no "allowing". What I seem to hear is that many here believe if DD showed it to someone, then the action itself is already a violation of the honor code and is deemed cheating, no knowledge nor intent is needed. I am just struggling to understand the concept.

I hear many here said they were told of this in earlier grades. I obviously did not go to those classes, but I have no reason to doubt it. On the other hand, DD did not know. Was she naive? perhaps. Does she deserve to have her grade destroyed? I have mixed feelings.

If you called someone who was having a party, and said "will you be allowing alcohol?" and they said no, but you later found out that there was alcohol in the house, available to the kids, and they didn't do anything other than say, once, "please don't drink it"? Would you be annoyed?

I would, because I would consider giving someone the tools to do something, when you have no way or intention of stopping them from using those tools the wrong way, to be allowing the behavior.

[Anonymous]

I think an F for the assignment would be warranted, even though it was unintentional due to her age. An F for the semester is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:50, OP here. Yes, it was HW, even though the school tried to characterized it later as a "HW test". I think that was BS, it was marked as HW on the report card and DD's classmates thought it was HW.

I think the first example they gave in the Madison honor code under Cheating "Copying or allowing others to copy information from someone else's work, test, homework..." covers homework.

What I struggled with the missing element of "allowing". DD did not allow and did not expect someone would copy, and I believe her. She is someone who has no problem in admitting her mistake if there is one. Many views expressed here indicated DD should have known better that by giving out the information, she should have expected someone would copy it. That was the part that I did not consider before, neither was DD.

I need to have a talk with my kids to teach them to be more defensive. It may made them start to distant themselves from their friends and classmates, but if that is what is needed, I will consider it.

11:01, I think what I keep struggling with is whether there need to have "knowledge and/or intent" to "allowing" to occur. If DD's classmate said, can I copy yours and DD showed HW, then that is clearly allowing. If DD said you can see but you cannot copy, then there were no "allowing". What I seem to hear is that many here believe if DD showed it to someone, then the action itself is already a violation of the honor code and is deemed cheating, no knowledge nor intent is needed. I am just struggling to understand the concept.

I hear many here said they were told of this in earlier grades. I obviously did not go to those classes, but I have no reason to doubt it. On the other hand, DD did not know. Was she naive? perhaps. Does she deserve to have her grade destroyed? I have mixed feelings.

If you called someone who was having a party, and said "will you be allowing alcohol?" and they said no, but you later found out that there was alcohol in the house, available to the kids, and they didn't do anything other than say, once, "please don't drink it"? Would you be annoyed?

I would, because I would consider giving someone the tools to do something, when you have no way or intention of stopping them from using those tools the wrong way, to be allowing the behavior.

I would be annoyed too. But should I be charged with contributing to the delinquency of multiple minors, because I drove my kid there, even though I asked and was told no alcohol? Should I have checked throughout the house first? I am not sure I understand the analogy here.