She said, he said, but he has proof

[Anonymous]

OP, when is your winter break? It usually ends the first week of January no? What has happened in the month since then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That does not sound like a respectful dialogue, honestly, especially the “must be an idiot” and “expect to rewrite laws” stuff. He needs to apologize and accept the results.

The kid is a 17 year old senior, and he's being accused of something very bad for a smart kid with college plans. It is understandable he doesn't completely conduct himself in a professional manner, I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That does not sound like a respectful dialogue, honestly, especially the “must be an idiot” and “expect to rewrite laws” stuff. He needs to apologize and accept the results.

The kid is a 17 year old senior, and he's being accused of something very bad for a smart kid with college plans. It is understandable he doesn't completely conduct himself in a professional manner, I think.

Yes, and he's old enough for it to both be understandable and for it to come with expected natural consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think I understand what OP is saying and taking her and her son at face value, this teacher is just... way off. And then it all escalated for personality reasons.

I just went back and rewrote OP's original post and now I understand.

It escalated because OP's son went to the principal. If her son had just accepted the zero, the teacher would have let it go; but complaining to the principal pissed her off and she sent a threatening email to the kid that she planned to put a note in his school record, rescind her recommendation for the scholarship, and pull his eligibility for NHS.

For a smart, scholarly kid, these are big deal things. I think the teacher is WAY out of line.

I would fight this.

Sure, but the million dollar question: if it was only flagged for short standard terms that everyone would be using, then why was everyone's project not flagged for exactly the same thing?

I wonder if the examples given here of what got flagged are not fully representative of the problems identified.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That does not sound like a respectful dialogue, honestly, especially the “must be an idiot” and “expect to rewrite laws” stuff. He needs to apologize and accept the results.

The kid is a 17 year old senior, and he's being accused of something very bad for a smart kid with college plans. It is understandable he doesn't completely conduct himself in a professional manner, I think.

He called himself an idiot, not the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, when is your winter break? It usually ends the first week of January no? What has happened in the month since then?

I think OP meant midwinter break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think I understand what OP is saying and taking her and her son at face value, this teacher is just... way off. And then it all escalated for personality reasons.

I just went back and rewrote OP's original post and now I understand.

It escalated because OP's son went to the principal. If her son had just accepted the zero, the teacher would have let it go; but complaining to the principal pissed her off and she sent a threatening email to the kid that she planned to put a note in his school record, rescind her recommendation for the scholarship, and pull his eligibility for NHS.

For a smart, scholarly kid, these are big deal things. I think the teacher is WAY out of line.

I would fight this.

Sure, but the million dollar question: if it was only flagged for short standard terms that everyone would be using, then why was everyone's project not flagged for exactly the same thing?

I wonder if the examples given here of what got flagged are not fully representative of the problems identified.

+1. This story makes no sense because everyone would have been flagged if OP were describing this accurately.

[Anonymous]

It sounds to me like he copied entire sections, changed a couple of words to "paraphrase" it, and didn't cite any of it. OP's claim that it was just phrases like "quid pro quo" is idiotic and probably actually means that it was the whole quid pro quo section.

Of course your DS didn't deliberately plagiarize. But it sounds like he doesn't really understand what that even is and thinks that if he uses a few transparent synonyms and doesn't copy-paste straight from the website as-is, that it's enough. It isn't. He would get dinged for this at every single college and the professor would NOT be impressed by a "I didn't do it deliberately!" excuse. They hear every excuse in the book and 95% or them are stupid or lies. Everyone thinks they are special. They aren't.

How does he not know, even without being told, that he needs to cite stuff? In 12th grade? It's so obvious it doesn't need saying. Not at this point in his school career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds to me like he copied entire sections, changed a couple of words to "paraphrase" it, and didn't cite any of it. OP's claim that it was just phrases like "quid pro quo" is idiotic and probably actually means that it was the whole quid pro quo section.

But when you are copying boilerplate language, do you need to cite your source?

They were putting together an employee handbook for a mock company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds to me like he copied entire sections, changed a couple of words to "paraphrase" it, and didn't cite any of it. OP's claim that it was just phrases like "quid pro quo" is idiotic and probably actually means that it was the whole quid pro quo section.

But when you are copying boilerplate language, do you need to cite your source?

They were putting together an employee handbook for a mock company.

Attorney here in charge of employee handbook: IRL no but for a school assignment, yes.

I like to change boilerplate into more plain language anyway. IMO if my average employee can’t understand the policy easily, I haven’t done my job well. Too much legalese in most boilerplate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think I understand what OP is saying and taking her and her son at face value, this teacher is just... way off. And then it all escalated for personality reasons.

I just went back and rewrote OP's original post and now I understand.

It escalated because OP's son went to the principal. If her son had just accepted the zero, the teacher would have let it go; but complaining to the principal pissed her off and she sent a threatening email to the kid that she planned to put a note in his school record, rescind her recommendation for the scholarship, and pull his eligibility for NHS.

For a smart, scholarly kid, these are big deal things. I think the teacher is WAY out of line.

I would fight this.

Right, retaliation from the teacher. This thread is the best argument against private high school in this area. Thanks for saving me 250K.

- parent of a middle school student

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think I understand what OP is saying and taking her and her son at face value, this teacher is just... way off. And then it all escalated for personality reasons.

I just went back and rewrote OP's original post and now I understand.

It escalated because OP's son went to the principal. If her son had just accepted the zero, the teacher would have let it go; but complaining to the principal pissed her off and she sent a threatening email to the kid that she planned to put a note in his school record, rescind her recommendation for the scholarship, and pull his eligibility for NHS.

For a smart, scholarly kid, these are big deal things. I think the teacher is WAY out of line.

I would fight this.

Right, retaliation from the teacher. This thread is the best argument against private high school in this area. Thanks for saving me 250K.

- parent of a middle school student

Hahaha agreed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds to me like he copied entire sections, changed a couple of words to "paraphrase" it, and didn't cite any of it. OP's claim that it was just phrases like "quid pro quo" is idiotic and probably actually means that it was the whole quid pro quo section.

Of course your DS didn't deliberately plagiarize. But it sounds like he doesn't really understand what that even is and thinks that if he uses a few transparent synonyms and doesn't copy-paste straight from the website as-is, that it's enough. It isn't. He would get dinged for this at every single college and the professor would NOT be impressed by a "I didn't do it deliberately!" excuse. They hear every excuse in the book and 95% or them are stupid or lies. Everyone thinks they are special. They aren't.

How does he not know, even without being told, that he needs to cite stuff? In 12th grade? It's so obvious it doesn't need saying. Not at this point in his school career.

This. All of this.

[Anonymous]

I don't get it This sounds like some kind of business class, and the assignment was to create an employee handbook to keep your company out of legal trouble. They weren't supposed to create their own policies. The whole point of legal boilerplate is to be standardized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get it This sounds like some kind of business class, and the assignment was to create an employee handbook to keep your company out of legal trouble. They weren't supposed to create their own policies. The whole point of legal boilerplate is to be standardized.

This whole class sounds like a bullshit gut class for an easy A. I was taking two AP science classes in senior year, not writing an “employee handbook”.