Behavior Expectations & Academic Policies

Dress Code

To promote unity and academic success, IVA High requires students to follow the Dress Code. This Dress Code is meant to give students some flexibility and versatility while also giving clear guidelines about what is acceptable so that our work and interactions at school are focused on teaching, learning, and community building. In order to develop a cohesive community, we find it important to align ourselves with a collegial and college bound culture. IVA High has adopted the following general guidelines to enhance student achievement, create a safe and distraction-free learning environment, foster school pride, and operate free from hazard or threat to students’ health, safety, and general welfare. These guidelines must be adhered to at all times while on campus.  

• Fostering a sense of self-respect
• Supporting students to be leaders
• Maintaining a serious commitment to academics
• Promoting a safe community for all our students   

*School appropriate means: Safe, respectful, non-revealing, and conducive to learning. No sexually related, gang, weapons, alcohol, or any drug references on any item of clothing.

Outerwear

• Jackets/sweaters must be appropriate for school.  

Bottoms

• Pants, shorts, dresses, and skirts, MUST be school appropriate, worn at an appropriate length (where fingertips lay with arms by the side).
• Undergarments MUST be worn and not visible.  

Tops

• Shirts need to be school appropriate.
• Length of shirt MUST cover navel.
• Straps MUST be secure.
• Undergarments MUST be worn and not visible.  

Hats/Caps

• Bandanas are not permitted.
• Tied durags and beanies are okay. 
• Hoods can ONLY be worn on shoulders, and not over head at anytime while on campus.  This is for our safety.

Shoes

• Safe and school appropriate. 
• Shoes need to have a strap to hold securely to foot. 
• Shoes need to be on at ALL times.    

*School appropriate means: Safe, respectful, non-revealing, and conducive to learning. No sexually related, gang, weapons, alcohol, or any drug references on any item of clothing.

Support For Families to Meet Dress Code 

If at any time a family has difficulty supplying the above clothing for their child, please speak to the Director or the student’s Advisor so that we can help problem solve to acquire appropriate clothing.

When students violate the dress code, the student’s parent/family will be notified. If students repeatedly do not follow dress code guidelines, they will be asked to reflect on their daily choices and come up with a plan to adhere to guidelines. If students continue to violate the policies, consequences may follow.  

Physical Education Uniform 

Students are required to wear appropriate Physical Education (PE) clothing during their PE course, uniforms are not required. Items can be purchased on a donation basis from the Front Office. Students are expected to launder their clothes on a weekly basis.  

School Supplies 

Students are expected to bring their Google Chromebooks to each class. Many of the students' books are electronic and uploaded onto each Chromebook. IVA High asks that students treat our books and classroom materials with care so that they will last for many years.

IVA High also provides some basic supplies as well as a Google Chromebook for each student. We ask students to bring the following necessary items if their families are able to do so:   

• Writing utensils
• Pencils (if mechanical, have extra lead.)  
• Ballpoint pens (black or blue ink)
• Pink eraser
• Pencil sharpener (hand-held with a top)
• Loose-leaf notebook paper (college ruled)
• One 1.5”-2” three-ring binder, tabbed binder dividers
• College ruled composition notebooks for each of your six subjects       

Behavior Policies 

Dress Code, Tardies, Cell Phone Use 

Tracking Infractions Intellectual Virtues Academy has adopted the following general guidelines in order to enhance student achievement, create a safe learning environment, provide a spirit of school pride, and so that the school can operate free from distraction, hazard, or threat to students' health, safety, and general welfare. IVA High tracks student infractions in three areas: being out of dress code, use of cell phone on campus, and tardies to class during the school day.  

We have three steps to address cell phone infractions:

1. Warning: student will change out or have cell phone held in the office
2. Email or call home about the policy and notice of second infraction
3. Email/call home about third infraction the student's cell phone will be held by the office until a parent is available to pick it up. If this continues, this infraction may result in: loss of school activity, behavior contract, parent conference.  

We have three steps to address dress code infractions:

1. Warning: student is informed of the infraction.
2. Email or call home about the policy and notice of second infraction.
3. Call home. Parent is asked to bring student a change of clothes or student is provided a change of clothes, which the parent will be charged for.   

Student behavior at IVA High is based on positive support and involves multiple facets of support that include school staff, teachers, parents, and students. At IVA High, student discipline is as an important opportunity to encourage thinking habits in our students so that they can learn from mistakes and understand appropriate behavior as well as the consequences for our actions.

At Orientation, our students were presented with the Student Handbook, which outlines our community expectations that can be summarized in this idea: everything we do should support thinking and learning.  

We are responsive to individual behavior concerns as well as committed to helping students process the sort of conflicts that are normal at this stage in their lives. When discipline crosses the line of safety on campus we utilize our thorough our Suspension and Expulsion Policy, outlined in the student handbook, which is aligned with state and federal expulsion laws.  

Restorative Process 

One element of our discipline process is to hold Restorative Conversations which are adopted from restorative practices. 

It is our goal to create the most positive, least disruptive learning environment for our students. We serve high school students and this age brings with it all the complications of growth and development. The combination of the age of our students, and our role as a public school to serve all students, means that we cannot promise an environment free from disruptions, but we can commit to minimizing the seriousness and frequency of disruptions caused by student misbehavior through our school's policies. In order to prioritize learning at IVA High, we take very seriously any distraction that might stop our students from being provided a positive learning environment. It is a part of our model of education to capitalize as best we can on mistakes, failures, struggles, and other "disruptions" as, potentially, teachable moments.   

Instructional Policies

IVA High teachers collaborate to think through and agree on common grading and student interaction processes in class. In all of our thinking and decision-making, we ask questions, seek understanding, and practice the habits of good thinking. Both our instructional and behavioral practices are aligned to the mission, vision, and values of the school and intended to protect the learning of students. If you have questions about these practices please ask and we will take the time to analyze the questions or suggestions as a team and evaluate whether we need to make a school-wide adjustment. We deliberately align all of our thinking and decision-making with the mission, vision, and values of the school.

For more details click here. 

Academic Integrity 

IVA High requires all students to demonstrate honesty and to be mindful of the values underlying an honest and true education, and the challenges posed by a continuously evolving world and, in particular, the immediate access to resources found on the Internet. IVA High students agree to accept personal responsibility for honorable behavior in all of their academic endeavors, to assist one another in maintaining and promoting personal integrity and ethical standards, and to follow the principles and standards set forth in this Code of Academic Integrity.

Violations of the Code of Academic Integrity may take several forms. Plagiarism and cheating are two examples of violations of the Code of Academic Integrity. Plagiarism is typically described as duplication of another’s work without full acknowledgement of the debt to the original source; however, it also includes any of the following1:

●  Direct duplication by copying (or allowing to be copied) another’s work, whether from a book, article, Web site, another student’s assignment, etc.;
●  Duplication in any manner of another’s work during an exam;
●  Paraphrasing of another’s work closely, with minor changes but with the essential meaning, form and/or progression of ideas maintained;
●  Piecing together sections of the work of others into a new whole;
●  Submitting one’s own work which has already been submitted for assessment purposes in another subject; and/or,
●  Producing assignments in conjunction with other people (e.g. another student, tutor), which should be your own independent work.
●  Producing assignments using AI-Generated material which should be your own independent work.

Cheating results in a loss of integrity on the part of the individual committing the act and on the educational process that is undermined by the act of cheating. It is a violation of the Code of Academic Integrity for any student to attempt to gain or gain an unfair advantage over another student by unfair or dishonest means.

If you are unclear about an assignment, the methodology for the same, or the permissible bounds of assistance for completing your work please speak to your teacher(s) and ask for clarification.

Consequences for not following the academic code of conduct may include receiving a zero on the assignment, failing the course, and/or disciplinary action including the possibility of suspension and/or expulsion from school.