BENTONVILLE -- High school students caught cheating could face stiffer consequences if the School Board revises its procedures Monday.
The proposed changes to the high school handbook include a rewritten section on academic integrity, a response to recent discussion among board members who complained the school isn't tough enough on cheating.
Next meeting
The Bentonville School Board meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the School District’s Administration Building, 500 Tiger Blvd. Action items on the agenda include handbook revisions for the 2016-17 school year, names for the 11th elementary school and fifth middle school, a 10-cent increase to the price of school breakfast and lunch meals, and food service and custodial contract renewals.
Board member Grant Lightle has been particularly adamant in pushing for changes, arguing any student caught cheating even once should be ineligible for certain School District awards or recognitions, such as graduating with honors. He wrote a draft policy and presented it to fellow board members.
"I think people should know this is very serious and if you do this, it's not going to come out all right for you," Lightle said during the board's April 4 meeting.
Board member Joe Quinn agreed.
"The line I drove into my kids growing up was, 'Decisions have consequences,'" Quinn said. "The older you get, the more severe the consequences are. And that is what this comes down to."
Violation of the current policy requires notifying a parent or guardian and placing the student on the step discipline plan no lower than step four, which is four days of detention, a Saturday suspension or a day of in-school suspension.
The plan is a set of 10 disciplinary steps of increasing severity, ranging from one day of detention to 10 days of suspension and the possibility of expulsion.
The procedure proposed for next year is more complex as it details how a student's first, second and third offense will be treated.
On a first offense, the student will not receive credit for the exam or assignment and immediately will be required "to demonstrate mastery through an alternative assignment." Parents will be notified, and the student will be placed on academic probation as well as a level no lower than step four on the step discipline plan.
A second offense will include all of the consequences for the first, plus a meeting will be held with the student's parents. On a third offense, if the student is an honors student, that status would be removed.
Some board members were bothered by a clause in a previous version of the 2016-17 handbook that allows students to earn credit for the assignment or test on which they're caught cheating through an alternate assignment.
"I don't think they should get to make up their homework or their grade or whatever," board president Travis Riggs said. "Kids need to learn there are costs to your decisions today."
District administrators, however, noted state rules require them to base grades solely on mastery of the course work, so a teacher could not simply give a student a zero on a test or assignment, they said.
Part of Arkansas' governing standards for accreditation of public schools states, "Grades assigned to students for performance in a course shall reflect only the extent to which a student has achieved the expressed academic objectives of the course."
Bentonville's newest handbook proposal requires students to complete that alternative assignment or test immediately. That addresses a concern Riggs expressed that a student caught cheating could have several days to prepare for a different assessment.
The two high school principals and Judy Marquess, director of secondary education, came up with the new rules on academic integrity in response to the board's input.
The subject of academic integrity has come up several times during board meetings in the past year.
During one meeting in January, students who attended as guest board members were asked about the prevalence of cheating in their schools. One senior said it's "ridiculous" how much cheating goes on at the high school.
"I think it's because the disciplinary actions aren't where they need to be," said David Nichols, the student council president. "Because colleges will kick you out if you cheat. You'll get a few days of detention at (Bentonville High School)."
It's not uncommon for students to use a smartphone to snap a picture of a test while the teacher isn't looking, then send the picture to other students, Nichols told the board.
Jack Loyd, Bentonville High's principal, told the board cheating occurs "quite often," though he couldn't be certain of the frequency because he doesn't deal with it very much.
"The teacher will handle some of that in the classroom," Loyd said. "Some of it is handed off to the dean of students. Some (cases) make it to the assistant principal in an appeal situation."
Pete Joenks, Springdale High School's principal, said he, like Loyd, doesn't get involved much in cases of academic dishonesty, but he's aware it happens.
"A lot of times, teachers deal with it," Joenks said. "Kids this age are going to make mistakes, and that's just something we know going into it. The idea is to counsel them and reinforce that you don't do that again."
Cases of cheating or plagiarism are treated on a case-by-case basis, where first offenders aren't punished as harshly as those students with a history of offenses.
Teachers sometimes detect plagiarism in a student's paper by comparing the writing to a student's past work, Joenks said.
"They'll ask (the student), 'Is this your original work?' A lot of times when that conversation comes about, a student will just go ahead and admit it, and we say, how do we learn from this," Joenks said.
The Rogers School District lists cheating and plagiarism as a major offense in its high school handbook. Punishments for major offenses range from one day of suspension to expulsion.
NW News on 04/16/2016