School Policies, Practices and Procedures

Spadina International School community is committed to foster a positive school climate, safe and welcoming school environment, firmly believing that is an essential element for students to succeed in school. Practicing SIS core values of Self-Respect and Diversity acceptance, support the conception of a positive school climate in which everyone feels they are safe, welcome and respected. 

All students, parents, teachers, staff and members of the school community have the right to be safe, and feel safe, in SIS community. With this right comes the responsibility for everyone to be accountable for their actions and contribute to a positive school climate.

The SIS Code of Conduct is consistent with requirements outlined by the Ontario Ministry of Education in the Program Memorandum 128 from 2012, where clear standards are set for the behavior of all incumbents and environments in a school community

Fundamental beliefs

1. Everyone has a responsibility to promote a safe environment.
2. Everyone should be Aware of their rights, as active and engaged citizens. More importantly, everyone should also accept responsibility for protecting their rights and the rights of others. Responsible citizenship involves taking part in the civic life of the school.
3. All individuals must evidence Self-Respect and also treat with respect and dignity all members of the school community, especially those in positions of authority.
4. Everyone has a responsibility to resolve conflicts in a way that is civil and respectful. Insults, hurtful acts and a lack of respect for others disrupt learning and teaching in a school community.
5. Everyone is expected to resolve conflicts without using violence. Physical or Cyber aggression is not a responsible way to deal with other people. No one should use any element to injure another person, or even threaten to use itt to injure another person. This is unacceptable and puts everyone’s safety at risk.

Standards of Behaviour

Respect, civility and responsible citizenship

All SIS school members must:

1. Respect and follow all applicable laws
2. Demonstrate honesty and Integrity
3. Respect Diversity in people regardless of race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, creed, sex, gender identity, gender, expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, family status or disability
4. Treat one another with dignity and Respect at all times, especially when there is disagreement
5. Respect the rights of others
6. Show care and Respect for digital school property and the digital property of others
7. Be Aware of others need and help them
8. Respect all members of the school community, especially those in a position of authority
9. Self- Respect your need and the others to work in an environment that is conducive to learning and teaching, including by ensuring that cellphones and other personal mobile devices are only used during instructional time for educational purposes, for health and medical purposes and/or to support special education needs
10. Seek help from school staff, if necessary, to resolve conflict peacefully
11. Not swear at a teacher or at another person in a position of authority.

Safety

SIS School community members must not:

1. Engage in any form of bullying, whether it is in person or digitally
2. Give improper use of the username, password, email account and learning platform. SIS member is responsible at all times to keep the information safe.
3. Commit sexual assault
4. Traffic weapons or illegal drugs
5. Commit robbery
6. Give alcohol or cannabis to a minor
7. Be in possession of a weapon, including firearms
8. Use any physical or digital element to injure, threaten or intimidate another person
9. Be in possession of alcohol, cannabis or illegal drugs
10. Be under the influence of alcohol, cannabis or illegal drugs
11. Provide others with alcohol, illegal drugs, or cannabis 
12. Inflict or encourage others to inflict bodily or psychological harm
13. Engage in hate propaganda or other types of behavior caused by hate or bias
14. Commit an act of vandalism that causes extensive damage to SIS digital property..

Roles and Responsibilities

Principal, provide this leadership by:

1. Demonstrating care for the SIS community and commitment to student achievement and well-being in a safe and welcoming school environment
2. Holding everyone under their authority responsible for their behaviour and actions
3. Empowering students to be positive leaders in SIS and community
4. Communicating regularly and meaningfully with all members of their SIS community, including parents

Teachers and school staff, under the leadership of their principals, help maintain a positive learning environment and are expected to hold everyone to the highest standard of respectful and responsible behaviour.

As role models, staff uphold these high standards when they:

1. Help students work to their full potential and develop their self-worth
2. Empower students to be positive leaders in their classroom, SIS and community
3. Communicate regularly with parents
4. Maintain consistent and fair standards of behaviour for all students
5. Show respect for all students, staff, parents, volunteers and members of the SIS community
6. Prepare students for the full responsibilities of citizenship.

Students are to be treated with respect and dignity. In return, they must demonstrate respect for themselves and for others.

Respect and responsibility are demonstrated when a student:

1. Joins the SIS courses prepared and ready to learn
2. Shows Self-Respect, for others and for those in authority
3. Refrains from using anything that may put the safety of the SIS or others at risk
4. Follows the established rules and takes responsibility for their own actions.
5. Complies with all the school duties individually, avoids any form of plagiarism and ensures that any work that is not their own is properly cited.

Parents play an important role in the education of their children and can support the efforts of school staff in maintaining a safe and respectful learning environment for all students.

Parents fulfill this responsibility when they:

1. Are engaged in their child’s school work and progress
2. Communicate regularly with the SIS
3. Make sure their child is prepared for SIS duties
4. Ensure that their child attends SIS regularly and evidence the proper progress in their courses.
5. Inform SIS promptly about their child’s difficulties to follow a course. 
6. Become familiar with the provincial code of conduct, SIS school rules and Code of Conduct
7. Encourage and help their child follow the rules of behaviour
8. Supervise the digital content that the student is accessing to warrant the student´s safety.
9. Help SIS staff deal with disciplinary issues involving their child.

Community partners

Partnerships already in place may be enhanced and new partnerships with community agencies and members of the community may also be created. Community agencies offer resources that school staff can use to deliver prevention or intervention programs. Community members need to support and respect the rules of their local schools.

Police

The police play an essential role in making the schools and communities safer. Police investigate incidents in accordance with the protocol developed with the local school board. These protocols are based on a provincial model developed by the Ministry of the Solicitor General and the Ministry of Education.

Progressive Discipline

Through progressive discipline, SIS community determines appropriate consequences and/ or supports to help students improve their behaviour, while taking into account their individual circumstances. The goal is to help prevent inappropriate student behaviour from happening again.

The following factors will be taken into consideration:

• The students’ stage of growth and development
• The nature and severity of the behaviour
• The impact of the behaviour on the school climate.

Within this context, more serious consequences may be considered for inappropriate behaviour that escalates or is repeated. Providing students with the opportunity to reflect on their own actions and the impact of these actions is essential to student learning.

Supports and Consequences

SIS community will consider a range of options to determine the most appropriate way to respond to each situation and help the student learn from his or her choices. These will include different supports and consequences.

Supports

• A conversation with the student
• A review of expectations for the student’s behaviour
• Counseling about life skills coaching or anger management.

Consequences

• An assignment
• A project
• A suspension or an expulsion.

SIS community will make these decisions after looking at individual circumstances and mitigating factors like the student’s age, stage of social development, special education needs, history and the circumstances of the behaviour.

Parents have a primary role to play in their children’s education. Schools actively engage parents in the progressive discipline approach by involving them in ongoing conversations about their children’s achievement, well-being and behaviour. When schools and parents are partners, there are many positive results. These include improved student well-being, reduced absenteeism, positive student behaviour, improved student achievement and increased confidence among parents in their children’s schooling. The approach behind progressive discipline is the result of listening to the feedback and advice of parents, students and educators and incorporating their perspectives

Spadina International School intends to support the responsible, professional and appropriate use of information and communication technologies to meet its vision, mission, values and goals in the delivery of curriculum in a safe and caring online environment. SIS staff and students will use all digital resources, information and communication following or values of Self-Respect and also for others. 

Considerations:

1. SIS students, Teachers and Staff by the sole act of belonging to Spadina International School and access its digital resources, accept all terms and conditions of the SIS Acceptable Use of Information and Communication Technologies Policy. belong
2. SIS Teachers and Staff are responsible for previewing, monitoring and ensuring that the content of any sites used for classroom activities is educational and age appropriate.
3. SIS students, Teachers and Staff must guarantee that the user and password information is kept safely and therefore that the technological tools provided by Spadina International School are solely used for educational and administrative purposes.
4. All users must refrain from engaging in any other matter unrelated with the school using technological resources provided by SIS.
5. All Users are expected to comply with federal,  provincial and any local legislation that might apply 
6. All data stored on SIS electronic resources is owned by SIS, hence copyrights of all material developed by teachers or students related to educational and administrative tasks belong to Spadina International School. Users should have no expectation of privacy in anything they create, store, send or receive using SIS technology. 
7. All school business-related communications are subject to disclosure and retention requirements, regardless of the tool, account or device used, whether personal or SIS owned and employees/trustees will have to provide a copy of all business-related communications upon request. 
8. Users may not post, access or attempt to access material that is inappropriate such as (but not limited to) offensive, sexually explicit, pornographic, obscene, profane, inflammatory, disrespectful or degrading materials and/or language. 
9. SIS students, Teachers and Staff must not delete, alter, reposition, or tamper with files belonging to anyone other than himself or herself. 
10. SIS students, Teachers and Staff will refrain from engaging in any activity that violates the privacy rights of SIS or any individual or is contrary to all regulations in place. 
11. Users must guarantee that all records, data and messages must be retained or archived in accordance with recordkeeping or record retention requirements and practices. 
12. A SIS system administrator may open email and view other data if that action seems necessary for the ongoing health of the system or if inappropriate use is suspected. 
13. SIS students, Teachers and Staff shall not alter, conceal or destroy any records in accordance with legislation. 
14. Users are not to defeat system security, including any kind of password protection. 
15. Users must follow professional practices in providing for the security of electronic records, data, applications or programs under their jurisdiction. 
16. SIS students, Teachers and Staff must maintain secure passwords and the security of SIS electronic resources. 
17. SIS Teachers and Staff must recognize that information is confidential and intended for specific individuals and may not be appropriate for general distribution, e-mail users should exercise caution when forwarding messages. Messages received should not be forwarded to anyone else without the author’s prior consent. 
18. Teachers and staff shall not publish or distribute any personal or non-professional account maintained by the employee, any identifiable information about students, including but not limited to, names, academic assessment or evaluation, addresses, photographs, or videos taken on SIS jurisdiction 
19. Applications, add-ons and extensions must meet all standards of privacy and confidentiality 
20. Users must assure that all the software used in their computers is properly licensed or it is freeware
21. Users must use their own identity and never let anyone else use theirs, via id or passwords sharing. In any case, the Id owner will be responsible for any inappropriate action done with his/her ID. 
22. SIS users must refrain from using institutional electronic resources for getting involved in illegal activities. 
23. SIS students, teachers and staff must always communicate through the institutional email address or the learning platform, for matters strictly for education purposes. Teachers and staff might contact parents to personal telephones and email from the institutional email, solely for matters related to the student’s education. Any contact through other means or about further matters is strictly prohibited..

Compliance:

Depending on the role within Spadina International School, individuals who do not comply with the considerations aforementioned, will be subject to appropriate consequences consistent with SIS Code of Conduct, progressive discipline and Safe Schools legislation. 

Consequences may include, but are not limited to:

1. Limitations being placed on access privileges to SIS electronic resources 
2. Suspension of access privileges to SIS electronic resources 
3. Revocation of access privileges to SIS electronic resources 
4. Appropriate disciplinary measures (Teachers and Staff), up to and including dismissal 
5. Appropriate progressive discipline measures (students) 
6. Legal action and prosecution by the relevant authorities

SIS does not tolerate any form of cheating and plagiarism. SIS Students must understand that the tests/exams they complete and the assignments they submit for evaluation must be their own work and that cheating and plagiarism will not be condoned. 

SIS students will be instructed in the Onboarding process about the ways of plagiarism and its ethical and legal consequences

SIS teachers will remind on the Course Syllabus and on the assignments that the SIS student must work individually and comply with cheating and plagiarism policy

SIS students understand the gravity of cheating and plagiarism and the importance of acknowledging the work of others. 

SIS teachers supported in digital platforms will check assignments to identify any incident of cheating and plagiarizing 

SIS students who cheat or plagiarize will face the consequences stipulated in the SIS Code of Conduct, based on : 

(1) the grade level of the student, 

(2) the maturity of the student, 

(3) the number and frequency of incidents

(4) the individual circumstances of the student.