The establishment and promotion of a safe, supportive, and respectful educational environment is of utmost importance at MVA. All members of the MVA community, including students, parents/guardians, staff, and our Board of Directors, are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that is fully consistent with the highest standards of behaviour in all matters involving their association with MVA. This policy outlines the values and standards that will ensure MVA activities are conducted in an open, fair, respectful, and transparent manner.
All MVA students are required to follow the school code of conduct, which applies to interactions with all members of the MVA community as well as individual actions. In addition to the responsibilities outlined below, students must not:
Engage in bullying or aggressive behaviours, including cyberbullying.
Threaten or intimidate another person.
Engage in hate propaganda and other forms of behaviour motivated by hate or bias.
Use obscene, profane, threatening, or disrespectful language or images in any communications within the MVA community.
At MVA, all students are treated with respect and dignity. All members of the MVA school community are expected to:
Respect and treat others fairly, regardless of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, creed, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, family status or disability
Demonstrate honesty and integrity.
Address disagreement or conflict peacefully and constructively.
Respect the personal information and privacy of others.
Be active and engaged participants in the learning and assessment process.
In addition, all students must
Display academic honesty and integrity.
Represent themselves honestly in all communications, assignments, tests, exams, and other correspondence.
Provide evidence of their learning and achievement.
Adhere to all established timelines to the best of their ability.
Communicate with their teacher(s) should any issues or needs arise.
Comply with school policies including the code of conduct.
Take responsibility for their own actions.
Regular attendance at school is critical for student learning. Students who do not log on regularly or do not actively participate in their courses seriously jeopardize their opportunities to learn, to reach their potential, and to succeed in their courses. Due to the continuous entry and exit model of our school, there is no set timetable; instead, students have up to twelve months to complete all 110 hours of course requirements. Students are not required to log in daily; instead, the expectation is that students log in at least once every two weeks. Attendance for record keeping purposes is based on the number of completed lessons. For example, if a course has ten lessons to complete and a student has completed eight of them, the attendance register would indicate that the student was in attendance for 80% of the 110 hours. This value is scaled accordingly for the first report card.
Students who do not complete their courses within twelve months will be unenrolled from the course and will not be reinstated unless there are extenuating circumstances that can be verified by appropriate documentation.
MVA students are expected to uphold the highest standards of academic honesty and integrity and will be held accountable for the quality of their work and actions. All coursework and evaluations completed and submitted by students must be their own work—cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated.
Cheating is defined by MVA as:
Assuming another individual’s identity or allowing another person to do so on the student’s behalf for the purpose of fulfilling any academic requirement or in any way enhancing the student’s grade or academic standing--this includes parents/guardians logging in to a student account and completing coursework on behalf of the student.
The preparation of an assignment by someone else other than the stated writer, allowing one’s assignment to be copied by another student, or unauthorized collaboration with others.
Intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another commit academic misconduct such as substituting for a test or completing an assignment for someone else.
Using any device, implement, or other form of study aid during the final examination without permission, or as explicitly stated within a student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP)
The unauthorized giving or receiving of information, assistance, or collaboration during a test or examination.
Submission of the same piece of work in more than one course without the permission of the teacher.
The buying and/or selling of assignments, or exam/test questions.
Submitting academic work for assessment that was purchased or acquired from another source.
Accessing course content or external content during the final exam.
Plagiarism is defined by MVA as:
A student knowingly presenting a person's work as their own.
The use of ideas or thoughts of a person other than the writer, without proper acknowledgement.
The use of direct quotations, or of material paraphrased and/or summarized by the writer, without proper acknowledgement.
Borrowing facts or information that are not common knowledge and not citing the source (common knowledge facts do not have to be cited).
The submission of an assignment that has been written in part or in whole by someone else as one’s own.
The submission of material obtained from a computerized source (e.g. a website), with or without minor modifications, as one’s own.
Any student found to be in violation of this policy will be subject to a mark of zero for the assessment in question. Additional consequences, up to and including forfeiture of the credit and course fees, may be imposed. Cases of academic dishonesty will be addressed on a case-by-case basis by the MVA Principal.
MVA’s Learning Management System (LMS) is intended for educational purposes only. Any use of LMS tools for any other purpose other than their intended educational purpose is prohibited (e.g., malicious network damage, interference, or mischief). Student access into the LMS is provided as long as the student follows the guidelines set by the school Principal as well as provincial and federal laws. The school reserves the right to monitor all material that is placed in a user's account and to remove it if deemed necessary. If the LMS is used inappropriately or in a prohibited manner, the Principal reserves the right to suspend or terminate the registration of the user.
The security of the online environment is only as effective as the practices of its users. Therefore, it is important that students:
protect their login credentials and keep them private.
never attempt to access unauthorized material or to impersonate another user by using login credentials other than those specifically assigned.
never attempt to vandalize, harm or destroy data of another user, of the course, or of the school.
never knowingly upload any file or program that contains a virus, malware or other malicious code.
never reproduce course content including assessments, electronic mail correspondence, digital captures, discussion or chat threads in any fashion and to any other server without explicit written permission from the school Principal.
never write, use, send, download or display any information that is hostile, insulting to others, obscene, threatening, discriminatory, hateful, or otherwise offensive.
never display, transmit, distribute or make available information that expresses or implies discrimination/bullying or an intention to discriminate/bully.
Students should report to the Principal immediately upon receipt of any email or chat message which causes concern/suspicion, or requests inappropriate personal information.
Every MVA course has a mandatory final evaluation—this most often takes place as a closed-book final exam. The date, time, and place of the final exam are decided upon by the student, but must be approved by an MVA administrator before the exam is written. The exam must be written in the presence of an approved proctor (someone who monitors the student during the examination in order to ensure academic integrity). Students have two options for arranging supervision (proctoring) of the final exam—online or in person— and will be given full instructions for doing so once they have enrolled at MVA.
