An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 15 – Student Discipline

1. E STABLISH R ULES F OR C ONDUCT A ND D ISCIPLINARY P ROCEDURES It is a best practice for schools to adopt a student code of conduct that describes the school’s values and gives students and their parents clear notice of what the school’s expectations are for their behavior, what specific kinds of conduct are prohibited, and what possible consequences may result for violations. The code of conduct is intended to provide an overview of the behavior expected of students - it is important that the school not limit discipline to only that behavior which is prohibited in the code of conduct. The school’s policies should state that the school has the discretion to discipline students for conduct not specifically enumerated in the code of conduct, since it would be impossible for the school to anticipate every possible form of misconduct. In addition, in order to maximize a school’s discretion and flexibility to determine appropriate disciplinary consequences under each situation’s unique circumstances, the school’s policies should not require progressive discipline. The rules should be written in a manner that is easy for students to understand, with an eye towards the age of the students governed by the rules, and to the extent that they recite standards contained in criminal statutes, the rules should be paraphrased using language that is simple and clear. For younger students, such as rules contained in lower school handbooks, it is a best practice to include language encouraging parents to discuss the rules with their children to ensure that the students understand the behavior expected of them by the school. Schools should also ensure that their academic expectations of students are easy to understand and appropriate for the age of the students subject to those expectations. Many students, particularly younger students, do not understand when and how to cite to other sources, particularly when so much information is available on the internet. Having clear academic policies in place will not only provide guidance to students as to a school’s expectations, but will also support the school when it is required to enforce that policy. Walker v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll. 2134 Walker was a law student at Harvard Law School. She was set to publish a comment in the University’s Journal of Law and Technology. Due to purported computer virus issues, Walker submitted her final draft of the comment to the editors late and also told them that she still needed to go back and compare her draft to her sources. As the editorial staff began to review her comment, they discovered that several complete sentences had been copied from sources. Harvard’s administrative board issued a formal reprimand after conducting a hearing, and the reprimand appeared on Walker’s transcript. Walker sued for breach of contract and defamation in an attempt to have the reprimand removed from her transcript. Harvard won on summary judgment, which was later affirmed after Walker appealed. Harvard’s plagiarism policy, which the parties agreed was part of the contractual obligations between the parties, applied to “all work submitted by a student for any academic or nonacademic exercise.” Although Walker argued that she reasonably assumed this applied to final work only. However, the court disagreed, finding that a reasonable reading of the policy was that it applied to all work, including

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