I’m a teacher and this sounds preposterous. Did he actually plagiarize or not? Did he actually write his own policies? If it is actually his own work and was flagged by a plagiarism app as plagiarism because of commonly used jargon, YOU need to actually go to bat for him. And absolutely you must make the principal aware that she has threatened to retaliate against him for standing up for himself. IF it is not plagiarism,

But saying it is not *deliberate* plagiarism undercuts his argument. Saying he accepts his grade undercuts his argument. Negotiating for some new grade next quarter undercuts his argument. Mentioning how he has “supported her” make him sound like some kind of entitled prick who thinks because he has been in her “advisory biard@ that she should let him slide for copy/pasting.

Everything but the original plagiarism that may actually not be plagiarism makes your child sound like a weasel. If you believe he is being honest here, you need to step in openly and defend him and advocate for him. He has totally screwed this up with all this weaseling around.

They have apps for plagiarism now? No wonder Gen Z is a bunch of idiots.

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

OP stated this is public school, no?

You can be both "not a scrub" and a plagiarist, OP.

Anonymous wrote:

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”.

OP here - he's taking AP CS, AP calc, he was scheduled for AP physics 2, but class was cancelled. He replaced it with APES.

Maybe some kids took the class thinking it's an easy A. DS has taken all courses in biz, finance, law, and VE. They're electives, but they're relevant for him. He's had a paid internship for 18 months supporting startups, and was asked to be the lead developer on a covid platform.

He's not a scrub, but allegedly he's a plagiarist.

Our checker claimed Reference page is plagiarized. Now we have to leave it out and e-mail it to the teacher.
This schools crap in US is so much work and you learn nothing. I spent 30 hours writing up something I could've just read and discussed and gotten more out of.
Hope my kids go to community college- no pressure and no recommendation letters.

OP again - Thanks for comments. He did not call her an idiot btw. He was trying to emphasize that he'd be an idiot to submit deliberately plagiarized work.

It's mid winter break this week. Public school for pp that asked. It escalated last week. Yes, other students were flagged. The only reason he knows this is because they were snapping him for help. He told them his handbook was scorched earth, but he did help one girl reword 3 sections. Not sure if they spoke after the fact.

There weren't entire pages or sections flagged, but there were many 5+ word fragments that I already mentioned. Another example, Employees agree to uphold these policies... In this particular case, he changed the structure and a word, (Company name) expects its employees to abide by these policies. He cited laws and legal polices with lead ins, In accordance with the Disabilities Act of 1990,

The only reason he went to the principal is because the teacher cc'd pricipal in an email. Principal was not at all invested in the details, said he'd speak to her and told DS "no promise on a grade change." He wasn't asking for a grade change.

He's not planning to escalate any further, and doesn't think she'll retract college LORs. I'm not so sure, and how would we know? Again, it's beyond the grade at this point.

If I could, I'd post the whole damn handbook and sanitized email exchange here. Can't risk doing that even though we're in another state. The originality report app flagged findings from the most obscure sites. The terms were everywhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It’s really not. —attorney

Were you the same attorney who wrote this?

"This is a dumb assignment to use a plagarism check for.
I’m a lawyer that writes these policies for companies. We all basically take the standards model language from internet sources (some of which he may have used such as SHrM, others of which would not be easily accessible to a non lawyer) and then edit for our particular client’s needs. You can’t ask someone to write a form policy and then ding them because their form policy follows the form.
This is a ridiculous application of plagiarism—you would not want a policy where people put things in their own words. The whole point of a policy is to use certain standard accepted terms so there is no later dispute about meaning."

No. I am the one who does my job including core terms AND strives to make the employee handbook understandable to our employees. There is rarely one standard clause adopted across the board.

But anyway, this is a school assignment with rules about plagiarism. It sounds like this kid cut and pasted an entire sample and just changed the company name, more or less. That’s not ever going to fly as a class assignment.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It’s really not. —attorney

Were you the same attorney who wrote this?

"This is a dumb assignment to use a plagarism check for.
I’m a lawyer that writes these policies for companies. We all basically take the standards model language from internet sources (some of which he may have used such as SHrM, others of which would not be easily accessible to a non lawyer) and then edit for our particular client’s needs. You can’t ask someone to write a form policy and then ding them because their form policy follows the form.
This is a ridiculous application of plagiarism—you would not want a policy where people put things in their own words. The whole point of a policy is to use certain standard accepted terms so there is no later dispute about meaning."

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.

It’s really not. —attorney

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.

Which is why it is really weird that he was singled out JUST for boilerplate language that everyone used. Hmmm.

Anonymous wrote:He did apologize. I read the email exchanges. He was very clear that nothing was deliberate plagiarism, and sent screen shots of his original flagged section, and paraphrased version.

I don't know what the flagged version was, but this is his paraphrased section which was also flagged for: quid pro quo, sexual favors may result in demotion or termination:

Quid Pro Quo
○ Offering an advantage to any person in return for sexual favors may result in
demotion or termination.

Hostile work environment
○ Sexual misbehavior includes harassment, conversations, advances, and/or sexual images.
○ Verbal or physical misconduct
○ Nonverbal/physical sexual harassment
○ Display, distribution or discussion, such as jokes, ​images​ or written material

Did the other students in the class maybe write everything in "teen language" not formal officialese>

I could see kids writing this:

"Quid Pro Quo::
- giving special treatment to someone because they agree to have sex with you may get you fired.

Maybe that got past the flags?