At Greeley West High School, the administration strives to better prepare students for real-world college and life experiences. With that, a new academic honesty policy that is similar to the average college policy, has been put in place.
This idea has been in place for awhile and started off simple, with the idea of just simply not plagiarizing. With the uprising of Artificial Intelligence and the heavy use of it in schools, the policy needed to be reworded and consequences needed to become bigger to combat these issues.
The policy used to be at the teacher’s discretion as to discipline, grade consequences, and make ups. Now, cheating will be included on a strike system, similar to other discipline policies. In other words, every single case of cheating will build upon the first. This makes cheating not just a one-class issue, but it works with each case being a behavioral referral and something that goes on a student’s record and can be seen by all administration and staff.
Assistant principal Ms. Bridget Koehler thinks that alongside this policy, the definition of “cheating” needs to be addressed. “I think we assume students know exactly what plagiarism and cheating is. But that’s not the case, most don’t understand the ins and outs of it,” Koehler said.
Koehler explained that there are levels to the cheating that happens in high school “It is so much deeper than just copying and pasting something. With structural plagiarism, it can be as simple as copying ideas and flow of someone else’s work or what a chat bot gives when you ask it,” Koehler explained.
Students at the school think having a new policy that’s more in-depth is better as technology advances and the old policy has become too outdated. “With our generation having so much more access to technology and ways to plagiarize, this is a great thing,” sophomore Gizele Jaramillo stated.
Jaramillo said it will actually be good for teachers to know who the repeat offenders are. “This way, you can get a good consequence and it actually shows other teachers who they need to be watching,” Jaramillo explaiend. “It’s going to prevent kids from getting away with things that they shouldn’t be getting away with.”
Other students don’t think it will make too much of a difference. Senior Deisley Calel thinks it can become worse rather than better, “I think in all honesty, I’m glad the policy is being updated to fit our generations ways of plagiarism but all it is doing is putting more restrictions on students and the students that cheat, will still cheat, no matter what,” she said.
Greeley West’s admin team hopes that this new policy will teach students a valuable lesson about how to manage AI without completely erasing their own critical thinking skills.
