After years of an unclear academic integrity policy — leaving teachers, students, and families unsure of parameters and consequences of academic dishonesty — a group of Moorestown Friends School faculty worked over the summer to create a new version of the policy that provides a more structured system of academic integrity-related infractions.

The updated framework can be broken down into five distinct levels of academic dishonesty, each with defined examples and consequences. The new structure provides consistency and clarity for both students and teachers, eliminating the issue of ambiguity that existed with the previous policy.

Noah Rachlin, Upper School Director and an administrator who played a significant role in the update, explained how the group approached designing the update: 

“Our sense was that on the low end, there’s value in being able to have a formal warning. So, the idea of documenting something, having a conversation, [and] really making sure everyone understands and has the same expectations — but doing so in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s punitive. So then, once we started trying to think about that, we thought there was an opportunity just to expand the levels and the categorizations,” Rachlin said. 

Rachlin added that the specificity of the update aimed to create consistency across the community, a struggle that had been present in the previous system. 

He said, “Students and families should feel that if a student does something, this is what happens, and that happens all the time, instead of it being different in different classes or departments.”

Each level addresses a different degree of severity in either a “cheating” or “plagiarism” category.

Level One:

A Level One infraction is considered an “Academic Integrity Warning.” Students who receive this warning are “required [to meet with] the course teacher to answer clarifying questions and reinforce expectations,” according to the “Upper School Academic Integrity Infractions & Consequences” document sent by Noah Rachlin on September 24, 2025. 

Level Two:

Level Two infractions can occur either if you receive a second Level One infraction or if a student has “access to unpermitted aid or use of aid for 25% or less of an assignment/assessment” or frequency paraphrasing and citation issues. Students who receive this infraction receive and are required to meet with the teacher and will receive “reduced credit for the assignment, not to exceed 25% of the earned grade.” This means that if the possible grade is 100%, the maximum score a student receives would be 75%.

Level Three:

A Level Three infraction occurrs when a student provides or gives “unpermitted aid comprising more than 25% and less than 75% of an assignment/assessment” or if a large portion of text is plagiarized. At this stage, students receive a grade of 50% for the assessment/assignment, and can be asked to redo the assignment, but will not be eligible for a grade higher than 50%. They are also required to have a Restorative Conference with the teacher. 

This infraction can cause a student to be removed or ineligible from certain leadership positions, as well as make a student ineligible for that quarter’s Honor Roll or selection for Cum Laude.

Level Four:

A Level Four infection occurs when a student uses unpermitted aid for 75% or more of the assignment/assessment or plagiarizes approximately 75% or more of an assignment. If a student “provides detailed information about an assessment such that the information replicates most or all of the assessment in detail,” they may be considered a Level Four infraction.

Here, consequences include the same as the Level Three consequences and more: students receive a grade of 0% for the assessment/assignment, and can be asked to redo the assignment, but will not receive a grade greater than 0%. They will also be “unable to receive a letter of recommendation from the teacher of the course for scholarship, college, or other applications, [and] incidents will be reportable by student and school to a college or university upon request.”

Level Five:

The final level, Level Five, applies in extreme and repeated cases. A student who receives a Level Five infraction will be expelled. 

The policy was introduced to the student body during the first Meeting for Worship for Business of the year on September 24, 2025. Rachlin presented the structure of each level to the students, and it was followed by an activity led by Zaydan Lalani ’26, Meeting for Worship for Business Clerk.

Lalani said his primary goal when planning the meeting was to have a higher level of participation in MFWFB.

This meant that he needed to go about “the conversation in a different way than it had been done before. We wanted to hear the student voice on an issue that really concerns students, and something like academic integrity and the culture around that can only be changed when it comes directly from the students,” Lalani explained.

Lalani presented different examples of academic dishonesty to the community and asked students to rate the severity of each instance on a scale of 1 to 10, with no sevens to avoid neutrality.

He said, “The response was very positive. Dr. Z commented that it was the most participation we’ve seen [in MFWFB] in a while, and people [got] super into it.” 

As the end of the first quarter closes, US English Teacher Debra Galler expressed that the new policy has clarified expectations for students, especially as a teacher who navigates academic integrity instances regarding AI usage. 

“I think the policy makes things much clearer for folks about what is and is not acceptable, which I always think is a good thing,” she said. “It’s fairer for everybody, for the teachers, for the students.” 

Galler reflected on how academic integrity issues are emotional for teachers and that the warning level helps support those feelings. 

“If I find one in my stack, it derails the whole day for me like — all I can think about is now I have to figure out what’s gonna happen, talking to the student, caring for the student, and dealing with the breach of academic integrity.”

Because of this, Galler specifically pointed out the Level One Warning as especially valuable. 

“I think it empowers both teachers and students to address these issues head-on, but in a sort of safer way for everyone.” She continued, “I feel like students deserve the chance to make a mistake and learn from it. But I also think teachers need to be empowered to report because if we don’t do that, nothing will change in the culture of the school. [The warning level of the policy] feels like a way for us to have those conversations with slightly lower stakes, and if we end up having to have the conversation again, then the stakes can be even higher.”

Student Arianna Arzu ’26 shared her thoughts on the new policy: “Personally, I think the new structure provides a clearer punishment for when things like this happen, but I think an issue is that a lot of times academic integrity goes past teachers without being detected and other times it is detected.” She added to say to say that “for the policy to work, there needs to be a consistent way of detecting academic dishonesty.”