Mrs. Hernandez welcomes you:

1. Mrs. Hernandez welcomes you:

2. Mrs. Hernandez’s WebsiteHow do I get there? • Go to the District Website • Go to Menu (Upper right corner) • Go to “Families” • Go to “Teacher Websites” • Find and Click on “Hernandez, Stefanie” • Voila!! My Website

3. How to Contact Me shernandez@pobschools.org When I open voicemail, your message plays through the speaker on the ceiling for ALL to hear!

4. Grading System Vocabulary 25% Writing 35% Literature 35% Homework 5%

5. Classroom Library

7. There will be independent reading every quarter. Sometimes it will be free choice. Sometimes it will be genre specific. Please make sure that you approve your child’s book choice.

8. As a class, we read A Christmas Carol by Dickens, and we do an author study of Edgar Allan Poe.

9. We also read The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender. She is a Holocaust survivor. She will be coming to speak to our 8th graders on March 19th.

10. Parent PortalGrades appear as soon as they are entered.

11. Homework • Homework is expected to be • Neat • Complete • On Time Late homework is NOT accepted for credit. Remember to check “This Week At A Glance…” (the weekly calendar.)

12. High School is just around the corner… • Help your child advocate for him/herself to become a truly independent learner!

14. Academic Integrity • We at the Plainview-Old Bethpage school district value honesty and will promote and enforce this value in the classroom. For the good of all, we will emphasize the following: • The Plainview-Old Bethpage school district’s stand of academic honesty holds students responsible for the integrity of their own work. A student’s name on an exercise or assessment (such as homework, report, notebook, performance, project, quiz, examination, or research paper) is taken as an assurance that the work submitted is the direct result of the student’s own thoughts, stated in his or her own words, and produced without the assistance of others. Any violation of this standard is regarded as cheating. • To that end, students submitting major writing assignments will be asked to submit their typed entry to Google Classroom to have an outside service validate the authenticity and originality of the submission.

15. Cheating is defined as actions including, but not limited to, copying in testing situations, using unauthorized help sheets, illegally obtaining tests or individual test questions, providing test questions and/or answers to another student, copying any document(s) without giving proper credit, copying another student’s work, allowing ones own work to be copied, purchasing or downloading any work written by another, and copying and paraphrasing another’s ideas without giving proper credit. • In order to avoid plagiarism, students must be aware of the various forms plagiarized material can take: • There can be plagiarism from outside sources. • This occurs when a student uses an idea from an outside source (traditional and / or electronic) but does not credit the source. By doing this, the student is falsely stating that he/she came up with the idea unaided. • There can be plagiarism from other students. • If two (or more) students submit assessments that are identical or nearly identical, clearly there has been “cooperation” or plagiarism from one student to the other. • There will be no difference in the disciplinary action despite the fact that there might be a clear “original author” to the assignment. • To avoid any potential academic integrity issues and penalties, students should not give their original work to other students for any reason.  This applies to the sharing of “hard copies” of documents as well as sharing them electronically through an application such as Google Docs. While students might claim that they simply want to get ideas from the paper, see the structure of the submission, or read it purely for appreciation, the student giving his/her work to another student places him/herself in a jeopardized position.  Unfortunately, the recipient of the document might use the original document in a manner that constitutes plagiarism and that necessitates both students receiving a zero as a penalty. • There can be plagiarism from oneself. • Students cannot submit papers that they have written for other courses in any department without the permission of both instructors. Students whose papers serve “double duty” are plagiarizing from themselves. • An example of this would be a student that has written a paper on a current political topic for a social studies class and then submits the same paper to his/her English teacher as a research paper.

16. CONSEQUENCES • On any assessment (as defined above) the student will receive a zero and the parent or guardian will be contacted. • A student will not be allowed to use the excuse that he/she copied the material inadvertently. It is the student’s responsibility to familiarize him/herself with the rules concerning plagiarism. • If even a small portion of the paper is plagiarized, the entire paper receives a zero. There will be no separate grading scheme for plagiarized and non-plagiarized portions. There will not be any replacement assignments or extra credit assignments to counteract the grade of zero. • If two (or more) students submit assessments that are identical or nearly identical, each will receive a zero. • In any situations where a dispute exists regarding the validity of the charge or the suitability of the punishment, the student will have the right to appeal. The appeal process will be a meeting of the student, teacher, parent or guardian, and an administrator. • It is the student’s responsibility to prove that material is cited properly. Because the onus of proof is on the student, it is imperative that he/she save all research materials: bibliography cards, photocopied articles, access to all books, the outline and all drafts of the paper. Thus, if there is an issue of plagiarism, the student must demonstrate that the paper is genuinely his/her own.

17. Always talk to your child • Ask to see homework. • Ask to see long and short term assignments. • Help your child set up a schedule, if he/she needs your help with this. • Encourage your child to seek help from the teacher before the “last minute”. • Encourage your child to advocate for him/herself.

19. Parent Tips • Read a combination of fiction and non-fiction aloud or with your child. Look for subjects that interest your child - from sports heroes to dinosaurs. • Select more difficult passages over time. • Read more informational texts including newspapers, magazines, technical manuals, science and social studies articles and books. • Talk with your child and have him or her explain things. • Encourage writing at home. • Encourage a good work ethic. • Discuss with your children their performance in school and what they are learning. • Talk about tests with your child and be positive and encouraging. • Talk with your child's teacher(s) about his or her performance in school. • Talk with your children about the importance of graduating from high school ready for college and career success.