KEYS to Teaching Success: Ethics for Georgia Educators

All of the behaviors in the table below are crimes. Some, however, are considered crimes of moral turpitude, and some are not. This table, then, is designed to help you understand the concept of crimes of moral turpitude.

Remember that local policies can be more specific than state policies, so some local school systems might move a legal infraction from the right column to the left column.

Also, remember that all the behaviors in this table are crimes. Don't go out and do any of them. They all have serious consequences. Still, keep those distinctions in mind because if a teacher gets arrested and is convicted of felonies, drug-related crimes or crimes of moral turpitude, the teacher must report that conviction to the school administrator (usually the principal).

     For that reason, we should also understand how the PSC defines a conviction: If a person has been found guilty in a court of law OR if the person has pleaded no contest to one of those crimes, then the PSC considers that person guilty. Reporting our own ethics violations would be really difficult. In fact, many people would be tempted to keep that information secret, hoping the truth would never come to light. But failure to report such a conviction is a violation of another standard of teacher ethics, which we'll get to later.

     Click on the next tab, Examples of Violations.

The following choices would be considered violations of Standard 1 of Georgia's Code of Ethics for Teachers:

1. An educator traveled to Colorado and legally purchased marijuana; then he brought it back to Georgia. When he needed quick cash, he sold the marijuana unknowingly to an undercover police officer.
2. An educator downloaded child pornography from the internet, then distributed it to others.
3. An educator took computer equipment and other electronics from the school and sold them online.
4. An educator hacked into other people's bank accounts and withdrew money.
5. An educator took mail from nearby mail boxes to find bill payments by check. The educator washed the checks and created fake ones made out to himself, which he cashed at other banks in town.

Feeling confident in your knowledge of Standard 1? Click on the next tab--Assess Yourself--to evaluate your understanding.

Read the following scenarios. All of them are violations of Standard 1. Which ones involve crimes of moral turpitude?

1. An educator uses up all of her sick leave and needs time off to care for her sick child. She phones the school and calls in a bomb threat so that everyone can have a day off.
2. An educator needs extra case, so she takes her mother's prescription narcotics and sells them to students at a nearby college.
3. An educator goes to a neighborhood party and has too much to drink. She gets into an argument with another person, and the argument escalates into a fist fight and property damage.
4. An educator goes to a wedding and drinks four glasses of champagne. While driving home she runes a red light, and the police pull her over. The officer tickets her for driving under the influence.
5. An educator phones senior citizens and tells them they have won a federal grant. He tricks senior citizens into giving him their personal information and bank account numbers, which he uses to withdraw money from their accounts.

Answers to the assessment:

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. No

4. No

5. Yes

Professional relationships extend beyond the classroom walls as well as the boundaries of the campus. These days teachers and teacher candidates should be especially careful about what information they put online and the people they engage with online. This textbook includes an entire chapter about online communications for teachers, but for purposes of covering all ethics standards thoroughly, these guidelines apply to social media activities:

• Don’t send friend requests to your students, and don’t accept friend requests from your students. 

• Don’t follow your students’ social media feeds.

• Do not post images of your school’s students, faculty or staff. Do not post information about those students, faculty or staff either. More information about this advice appears under Standard 7, which is about confidential information.

• Keep your social media accounts private.

• Don’t post anything on a website that you would not post to the front door of your school.

• On your social media accounts, do not complain about work; do not complain about students; do not disparage students, colleagues or supervisors. As we’ll see in another chapter, many PSC ethics investigations have arisen from posts that educators have published on social media platforms.

To assess your online presence, conduct a Google search of yourself. If you have posted any written communication or images that would raise ethical questions for your supervisors, remove those posts immediately. If you’ve found inappropriate images of yourself that you didn’t post (remember, you’re not the only person who can take and post photos of you), take whatever measures you can to remove those images, and remember that you can contact the PAGE attorneys for advice if you need it.

Click on the next tab--Example Standard 2 Violations

All of the teacher behaviors listed below are violations of Standard 2:

• A teacher establishes an Instagram account under an assumed name but uses her own photos in her account profile. The teacher follows her students' instagram feeds and allows her students to follow hers.
• An educator receives text messages from a student that include personal subject matter. The educator engages in virtual conversations through those text messages and gives the student dating advice, including advice about premarital sex.
• An educator takes a class on a field trip, where one student becomes frustrated with another. When the first student pushes the other to the ground, the teacher makes the offending student sit in the bus, unattended, for the remainder of the field trip.
• An educator is a professional wrestler in her spare time. Her social media feeds include vulgar language, sexually-charged subject matter and fighting. She accepts friend requests from students and engages with them online.

Once you feel confident in your knowledge of standard 2, check your comprehension by clicking on the next tab--Assess Yourself.

Of the following examples, which ones reveal educators breaching the boundaries of professional relationships? 

• An educator left his wireless phone on his desk. A student accessed the phone and read sexually explicit text messages between the teacher and her spouse. The student showed those messages to other students. 
• An educator received text messages from an unknown phone number. The educator suspected that the messages were from a student, but couldn't be sure. The educator blocked messages and phone calls from that number.
• An educator started a romantic relationship with an eighteen-year-old student. The relationship began in May of an academic year. The student graduated in early June. The student turned nineteen in July of that year.
• At a high school football game, an educator at the school encountered a group of students drinking beer in the parking lot. The educator told the students to hide the beer, saying, "I don't want to know what you are doing." A parent heard the comment and reported the teacher to school administrators.
• A teacher witnessed one student sexually harassing another. The teacher removed the offending student from the classroom and reported the sexual harassment to the principal. The principal asked for proof of the offense, and when the teacher said that she had observed the harassment, the principal said, "If you don't have proof, I can't do anything about it."

How'd you do? Click the next tab to check your answers.

Answers to Exercise 2:

1. Yes

2. No

3. Yes

4. Yes

5. The principal's behavior violated ethics. The teacher's did not.

The following hypothetical examples would be violations of Standard 3 and would result in consequences regarding the offender's license and/or employment:

• An educator keeps a small bottle of vodka in her desk drawer and occasionally sips on it while grading papers after school.
• An educator takes a group of foreign language students to another country where the laws and social expectations of drinking are vastly different from the ones in Georgia. The educator drinks wine with dinner every night and allows students to do the same. The educator has not broken the law of that country but has still violated the ethical code.
• An educator with a back spasm takes a narcotic pain killer at home, then drives to the school baseball field to help in the concession stand. The educator demonstrates a lack of balance and dizziness.

Click on the next tab, Assess Yourself.

Read the ethics scenarios below. Which ones would violate Standard 3 of the PSC's code of ethics? After reviewing these scenarios, you may check your answers by viewing the next tab:

1. On a spring morning with heavy pollen counts, an educator suffered a sinus headache and took an over-the-counter, non-drowsy allergy medication and pain killer before going to school. The educator suffered a slight headache through the school day but managed to teach all of her classes.
2. During a fund-raising event at the school, planned for parents and other adult community stakeholders, an educator brought his own plastic cup to the event. He drank punch from the cup, but went to his car repeatedly, where he added alcohol to his drink.
3. After the school's team won a football playoff, the coaches took the team to a nearby pizza restaurant to celebrate. One of the assistant coaches drank one beer at the celebration, but did not get drunk.
4. A teacher undergoing cancer treatment experienced significant pain at school, so during her planning period she went to her car and smoked marijuana, which was not prescribed by a medical professional.
5. During an end-of-year celebration, a parent gave a "thank you" gift basket to an educator. The basket included a gift certificate to a nearby wine shop. The educator put the gift basket in his car so that the students would not see its contents.

To view the answers, please click on the next tab, Answers.

1. No, there is no evidence that the medication altered the educator's ability to function. This educator did not violate the standard.
2. Yes, the educator was representing the school, so even though students were not present, he violated the standard.
3. Yes, this educator was fulfilling the responsibility of a coach, so he violated the standard.
4. This educator absolutely violated ethical standards--Standard 3 as well as Standard 1.
5. No alcohol was used in this scenario. In fact, this basked includes a gift card, not alcohol itself. While this educator did not violate Standard 3, there's some question about whether the educator violated Standard 5, which you can explore in a different content box of this lesson.

Now please move forward to learn about Standard 4.

The scenarios below would violate Standard 4 of the PSC's ethical code:

1. An educator has first period planning, so eh often arrives at school an hour late. When she signs in, though, she falsely enters the time teachers are required to report to school.
2. When filling out a job application, a potential educator writes that she had experience coaching lacrosse, when actually she had helped raise money for her daughter's team.
3. A PSC investigator interviews an educator about her department chair's misuse of the budget. The educator claims she'd been unaware of the misuse, but later the investigator discovers emails revealing the educator's complicity with the misuse of the funds.
4. A student repeatedly forgets to turn in a signed permission slip for a field trip. The day of the trip, the teacher calls the student's mother to seek permission. The mother grants permission by phone, so the teacher forges the mother's signature on the permission slip.

Feeling confident in your understanding of Standard 4? Check your knowledge on the next tab: Assess Yourself. 

Read the following scenarios. Which ones violate Standard 4?

1. A teacher candidate filled out an application for employment at a Georgia public middle school. The application asked if she had ever been convicted of a felony. Several years prior, this teacher candidate had been mandated by the court to attend DUI training after receiving her second ticket for driving under the influence of alcohol. She didn't know whether that offense was a felony, so she left that question unanswered.
2. A teacher went to a professional development conference and attended all of the required sessions to earn professional development credit. But she forgot to get the leaders of the conference sessions to sign her verification form. When the educator returned to school Monday, she scribbled a fake signature on the form and turned it in to her administrator.
3. A teacher candidate submitted her resume with his application for a teaching positions at a local school. The qualifications for the position included an undergraduate degree in teacher education or its equivalent. Because the teacher candidate had not yet graduated, he wrote the following phrase on his resume: "BSEd in Science Education, expected June, 2023."
4. While grocery shopping on a weekend, a teacher realized she'd been exposed to a contagious virus. That night she experienced sneezing, a headache and congestion. She didn't feel terrible, and she had no confirmation about whether she had the virus or a common cold. Still, she filled out an online form requesting a sick day. 

Click on the next tab to check your Answers.

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. No

During the COVID pandemic, public school systems found themselves handling many issues involving teachers’ side businesses of online tutoring. There’s nothing wrong with making a little extra income and there’s nothing wrong with a teacher working with students online. But teachers cross the line when they use a public school’s laptop computer to do their private online tutoring. Neither can teachers use a public school’s textbooks, instructional documents or other resources to do private tutoring (Devetter, 2021).

      Educators behave unethically if they do any of the following things:

• Misuse school money or property
• Neglect to account for funds or improperly account for funds raised from students, parents or other stakeholders
• Dishonestly submit requests for funds or for reimbursements of expenditures
• Mix school funds with personal funds
• Use school or school system property without authorization.

All of the following hypothetical examples are violations of Standard 5:

• A teacher supervising candy sales for the debate team uses the cash to pay her credit card bill, then on pay day replaces the cash she borrowed.
• An educator needing a laptop computer and projector for a church youth talent show takes equipment from her classroom and allows the church youth group to borrow it.
• An educator with a broken down truck in the shop uses the school's minivan to drive back and forth to school until his truck is repaired.
• A teacher enrolled in graduate courses runs out of ink cartridges and paper to complete her masters thesis, so she helps herself to those items from the school supply closet.

Of the following hypothetical scenarios, which ones would be violations of Standard 5?

1. An educator supervised a talent contest for the local high school. Fund-raisers generated $500 for the grand prize, but the educator had not accounted for the cost of security for the event. After paying the security guards, he had only $100 for the grand prize, so that's what the talent show winner received.
2. the track team coach managed the track team's segment of the school's athletic budget. While ordering new uniforms for the team, he also ordered himself a new pair of running shoes.
3. The school librarian used some of her budget to subscribe to the New York Times, which was delivered daily to the school. During her planning period, she would read each day's issue of the paper.
4. After learning the school librarian used a portion of her budget to subscribe to the New York Times, the school principal began picking up the paper each afternoon and taking it home to read.
5. An educator in charge of the quarterly professional development meeting got her principal's approval to buy coffee and pastries to serve at the meeting. At the grocery store, she purchased coffee and pastries, plus a few other items she needed for herself. When she turned in the receipt to the principal, she had highlighted the coffee and pastries and requested reimbursement for those items only.

Click the next tab to read the Answers.

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. No

4. Yes

5. No

      A conflict of interest occurs when someone’s personal interests influence or interfere with their professional or official interests. For instance, when Central High School plays Westside High School in football, the referee at the game should not be a graduate of either school. Hiring a Central High School graduate or a Westside High School graduate opens a conflict of interest as the official might show bias for one team over another. 

      Another example would be if a school principal’s father owns the local sporting goods store. When the school teams need equipment, if the principal urges coaches to order equipment from that store, then there arises a conflict of interest because the principal might stand to gain personally from his own employer’s expenses.

      Standard 6 of the PSC’s ethical code prohibits such conflicts of interest. Educators may not, for instance, accept gifts from parents or businesses that would present undue personal gain. It’s okay if a parent wants to give a teacher a photo frame as a thank-you for working hard all year. But if a parent gave a teacher thousands of dollars or a new computer or a trip to Maui as a thank-you for working hard all year, that gift would suggest that something more than instruction was expected for that gift. A good practice would be to report to administrators any gift valued at more than $25 (Devetter, 2021). You would not want to risk the impression of giving a student a good grade in exchange for an expensive present or the impression of giving a student a poor grade because his/her parents didn’t give an expensive present.

      The online tutoring matter explained under Standard 5 is also relevant to Standard 6. Again, there’s nothing wrong with operating an online tutoring business outside of school hours, but teachers running such a business should be careful about their business arrangements. A conflict of interest would arise if a seventh grade teacher taught algebra during the school day, then accepted payment from her students (or their parents) for tutoring them each night. In fact, it would be smart for that teacher not to accept clients from the school or school system where she works. It would even be smart for that teacher not to accept clients enrolled in the same grade level that she teaches. Setting up those boundaries would enable the teacher to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

      This standard also involves incentives for students. Teacher cannot offer students academic incentives for non-academic work. For instance, in the fall, schools often hold canned food drives. A history teacher would be in violation of Standard 6 if he offered each student a homework grade of A for every 10 cans of food donated. Donating food has nothing to do with learning history, so that homework grade would be inappropriate remunerative conduct.

Western Family Asparagus and New Potatoes, 1970's by Roadside Pictures, CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

The following hypothetical scenarios would be violations of Standard 6:

1. The cheerleading coach, who also operated a dance school, required that the varsity cheerleaders attend--and pay for--her dance classes over the summer.

2. A band director collected fees for participating in the marching band, then paid himself for conducting summer band camp.

3. A student with a long-term illness received individualized instruction at home. The teacher who provided that instruction helped the student pass her courses. Afterward, the student's parents gave the teacher a gift of $2500.

Read the following scenarios. Which ones would be violations of Standard 6?

1. A tenth grade math teacher offered assistance to students to prepare for the SAT. She accepted payment from eleventh-grade students. When tenth-grade students approached her for assistance, she referred them to another math tutor who worked in a neighboring community.
2. The upcoming school spring fling will include a cake walk, for which the school asked parents to contribute cakes. An eighth grade teacher offered to each student an added point to the next test grade for each cake a student donated.
3. A beloved head football coach applied for a position in another state. The football boosters learned of the job application and wanted him to stay an additional year so that their children could attempt to make the state playoffs. As an incentive, three of the boosters bought and gave the coach a new pickup truck.
4. A history teacher applied for and won a grant funded by a local nonprofit organization. The grant proposal requested funds to pay for transportation to take her fifth graders to Savannah for the Georgia Day Parade. She reserved bus seats for twenty students' travel. Later four parents denied permission for their children to make the trip, so the history teacher asked three additional teachers to take those bus seats in exchange for their services as chaperones. 
5. A department chair in charge of textbook acquisitions ordered a set of books for the eleventh grade. She had some left-over funds in the budget, so she ordered the books she needed for her graduate courses.

Click the next tab to see the Answers.

1. No

2. Yes

3. It depends on whether the coach accepted the truck. Accepting it would have been a violation.

4. Offering the seat to other teachers is not technically a conflict of interest; still, the teacher would have been smart to consult with the nonprofit organization for its approval to use the bus seats that way.

5. Yes

All of the following hypothetical scenarios would violate Standard 7:

1. A teacher explained to the class that Samantha's dyslexia allowed her more time than the other students on a test.

2. A student asks a teacher for clarification about his grades. The teacher opens the grade spreadsheet to show the student his grades and accidentally conceals all the other students' grades.

3. Department chair A asks department chair B if teacher C would be a good person to lead the search committee for new faculty. Department chair B replies that teacher C is expecting a baby and will be taking maternity leave after the holiday break.

Feeling confident in your knowledge of this standard? Click the next tab to Assess Yourself.

Which of the following scenarios would violate Standard 7?

1. Eighth grader Jasmine broke down into tears during her science lab activity, which involved examining the anatomy of a frog. In the faculty lounge, the science teacher described Jasmine's behavior, and a colleague said, "That doesn't surprise me. She's on medication for anxiety."
2. Mr. Hornsby had gall bladder surgery, so he requested a substitute for a week. During his absence, the department chair asked the substitute whether she would be available the following week, "In case Mr. Hornsby is absent longer than expected."
3. A sixth grade teacher noticed her student Theo had head lice. She referred Theo to the nurse's office, who sent Theo home for treatment. During lunch, the teacher wrote and photocopied a letter, which she gave out to the other students with instructions to take them home to parents. The letter said, "One of our students has head lice. Please check your child to see whether the infestation has spread."
4. Darius and Jack got into a fight at the bus line. Fighting is against the school system's code of conduct. Darius had never been in a fight at school, but Jack had been punished for fighting three previous times. Darius was placed on in-school suspension, but Jack was suspended from school for three weeks. When Jack's parents learned Darius was still going to school, they complained to the principal, who explained, "Jack has now violated the code of conduct four times, which requires that he be suspended from school."
5. In anticipation of Valentine's Day, the fifth grade teacher planned a small celebration. She sent an email out to parents asking them to contribute snacks, drinks or paper products. She included a line in the request that said, "Out of an abundance of caution, please do not send foods that include nuts or drinks that include caffeine."

Click the next tab to see the Answers.

1. Yes, it was a violation of Standard 7 to mention Jasmine's prescriptions.

2. No. The department chair upheld the standard by keeping confidential the reason for Mr. Hornsby's absence.

3. Yes, this was a violation. The teacher did not tell the class why Theo was leaving the room, and in the letter she omitted Theo's name. Still, by giving the letters to the students, who saw Theo depart, the teacher made it very easy for the students to draw conclusions.

4. No, this was not a violation. The principal responded to the parents' complaint by focusing on Jack's offense and leaving Darius out of the discussion.

5. No, this is not a violation.   

Because this web page offers numerous examples of ethics violations that also fall under Standard 8, we won't list more here. But we will recommend that you visit the website of the Georgia Office of the Child Advocate.

Many teacher preparation programs require that their teacher candidates earn certification as mandatory reporters prior to being placed in schools for field placements. If you have not earned your mandatory reporter certificate, you can receive training and certification online at no cost at this website.

Ready to assess your knowledge of Standard 8? Click on the next tab.

This assessment is a little different from the previous ones you've completed. Read the scenarios below. Which one best complies with the expectations of Standard 8?

1. A teacher notices bruises on her student's arms and neck. She knows the student often picks fights with older kids, so she's not sure if he is the victim of abuse or not. She makes a note of the bruises and resolves to observe the student carefully over the next few weeks to see if she notices other signs. She wants to be sure of her suspicion before reporting.
2. A teacher hears two students talking in the restroom. One is in tears as she tells the other that her boyfriend, a nineteen year-old college student, forced her to have sex with him. The teacher interrupts and begs the girl to tell her parents.
3. A paraprofessional notices that a student has worn the same clothes all week. The student has developed body odor and her hair is not clean. When the paraprofessional approached the student to check her spelling words, the student shrank away, as if in fear. During the class change, the paraprofessional walked to the school office and asked to see the principal to report suspected abuse.
4. A teacher notices that a student has been pushing classmates on the playground. After redirecting the student a few times, she notices no change in behavior. She called the student's parents and left a message requesting a meeting to discuss the student's behavior. When the student returned to school the next day, he was silent, but winced when sitting at his desk. The teacher asked the student if he was in pain, but the student said no, so the teacher didn't push the issue. She decided to phone the parents again.

Once you have selected a scenario, click the next tab to check your Answers. 

The third scenario is the most appropriate form of reporting. 

In the other scenarios, educators suspected but hesitated because they weren't sure OR they put the responsibility back on a student by urging her to report to her parents. Remember that when it comes to reporting abuse, it's not our job to be sure. It's not our job to investigate. It's our job to report. 

All of the hypothetical scenarios below would be violations of Standard 9:

• A teacher uses many instructional videos in her classes, and she plays them at such a high volume that the videos can be heard in adjacent classrooms, usually disrupting instruction in those other classrooms. The teacher’s colleagues have requested that she turn down the volume on her speakers, but she refuses, saying that the request infringes on her academic freedom.

• A teacher manages her time poorly and usually fails to submit her grade reports on time, thereby making it difficult for administrators and the registrar to fulfill their responsibilities.

• A science teacher prefers to wear loose-fitting clothing with wide sleeves. She wears such clothes even on days when students are working in the lab with open flames and flammable chemicals.

Feeling confident in your understanding of Standard 9? Check your knowledge by clicking the next tab: Assess Yourself

Which of the following behaviors would illustrate a violation of Standard 9?

1. A teacher drank a Big Gulp on the way to school. By the middle of first period, she needed to visit the restroom. Without a paraprofessional to watch the students, she stuck her head into the adjacent classroom and asked her colleague, who was in the middle of a lecture to “listen out” for her students while she went up the hall to the ladies’ room.

2. A P.E. teacher instructed his students to run ten laps around the gym. While they were running, he sat on the top bleacher, read his latest issue of Sports Illustrated, and ate his chicken biscuit.

3. A first-year teacher taught ninth grade English from August through February. But then the principal of her home-town high school phoned and explained that one of his English teachers had been in an automobile accident and couldn’t finish out the year. He offered her the position. The first-year teacher expressed interest in the position, but only if she could begin the following August because she was still under contract at her current high school.

4.  A teacher who also served as the cheerleading coach had trouble managing her varied responsibilities. Once a week, she allowed her students to have a “free day” if they sat quietly while she organized the cheerleading schedule and caught up on her grading.

5. A teacher often enjoyed humorous banter with students and for several weeks swapped “You’re Mama’s So Fat” jokes with his homeroom students.

Click on the next tab to check your Answers.

1. It's unfortunate that teachers often find themselves in such situations. Nevertheless, to leave students unattended in the classroom is a violation of Standard 9.
2. Yes, this is a Standard 9 violation.
3. No, this is not a Standard 9 violation. The teacher honored her contract.
4. Yes, this is a Standard 9 violation. Although coaching cheerleaders was part of her professional responsibility, so was teaching her students, which she was not doing.
5. Yes, this is a Standard 9 violation. The jokes are inappropriate for a learning environment.

      Someone new to the profession might argue that Standard 10 is redundant, that Standards 4 and 9 would already address test manipulation. The Atlanta Public Schools test-manipulation scandal, however, was so severe that the PSC must have felt the redundancy was necessary.

      Many readers of this chapter are too young to remember the Atlanta City Schools cheating scandal of 2009, but it’s the most egregious recent example of test manipulation. Between 2009-2015 investigations and court cases revealed that hundreds of school system faculty and administrators altered Criterion Referenced Competency Test scores to indicate an increase in student achievement. That increase was so great that it raised the suspicion of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and culminated in the 178 criminal indictments and 11 convictions of school personnel. That cheating scandal makes school administrators especially sensitive about how they and their employees adhere to this ethical code (Staff Reports, 2015).

666,000 Lost by Thomas Cizauskas CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

The scenarios mentioned on this tab and the previous one already offer sufficient examples of how to comply with Standard 10. The following exercise, though, can help clarify your understanding of the state's expectations of test procedures and security. Click on the next tab: Assess Yourself.

Which of the following scenarios violates Standard 10?

1. A teacher had state-mandated test booklets on her desk. During the class change, she stepped into the hallway to monitor student behavior. Some students lagged behind in the classroom and stole a test booklet.

2. Before allowing students to begin, the teacher read the test script aloud, according to test instructions. When the students asked her to repeat the last sentence again, she read it word for word.

3. To prepare students for the upcoming state-mandated test, a teacher created a study guide, using questions from the actual test.

4.  During the week of state-mandated tests, a student contracted a communicable illness and missed a day of testing. The teacher made note of the absence and put the student on the list for the test make-up day.

5. During test administration, a landscaper ran the lawnmower outside the classroom window for thirty minutes, disrupting students’ concentration. The teacher gave students the option of staying in the classroom during lunch to continue working on the test.

Now click on the next tab to check your Answers.

1. Yes, this violated the standard. Of course, the students are also culpable in this situation, but the teacher should have kept the test booklets secure.

2. No, this was not a violation of Standard 10.

3. Yes, this violated the standard.

4. No, this was not a standard violation.

5. Yes, this violated the standard. The teacher should have reported the disruption to her administrator (usually the principal), then followed his direction.