Code of Conduct

Flatiron School is responsible for overseeing the integrity and purpose of the school mission through the establishment and upholding of policies and procedures outlining expectations for student behavior. We are passionate about fostering a learning community that respects the dignity and right of all persons to pursue their educational and career goals. Our learning communities are designed to promote personal accountability, respect for self and others, and the development of lifelong learners.

Flatiron School provides a range of services to our students and learning communities that are founded on respect for the safety and welfare of others. We strive to protect the learning environments that our students value, and, in doing so, have established guiding principles intended to help our students embody the actions that will positively influence the educational process.

This code aims to both create and sustain an environment that is conducive to learning. These principles prioritize mutual respect, open dialogue, and individual well-being.

Flatiron School’s Code of Conduct applies to all Flatiron School students regardless of program, method of delivery, and space, including campuses, Slack workspaces in all public and private channels, Zoom, email, and other communication or collaboration resources. We expect all Flatiron School stakeholders, including faculty, teachers, employees, mentors, students, guests, and friends, to help us create a safe and positive environment for everyone. We are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all, and we prohibit discrimination as outlined in in our Non-Discrimination Policy.

Students may direct questions about what conduct is prohibited by this policy to the Student Relations team at studentrelations@flatironschool.com.

Fair Treatment and Respect

Students are to treat each other, faculty, and staff fairly, honestly, and with dignity and respect. Students must not participate in, initiate, or perpetuate any gossiping, rumor milling, or discuss another student’s personal and/or confidential information with others, or create or encourage a toxic or otherwise unproductive environment.

While interacting online, students must conduct themselves in a professional, courteous and attentive manner. This includes, but is not limited to, keeping the camera on while in online meetings and maintaining a work-appropriate and respectful background (virtual or otherwise) profile photo.

Furthermore, all students must comply with the following expected behaviors:

• Treat others with dignity and respect
• Engage with one another in a considerate, collaborative manner that creates and upholds a safe and positive environment for everyone
• Act in a manner that protects the health and safety of the Flatiron School community, including compliance with campus safety and other policies, such as those related to the COVID-19 pandemic
• Support and promote teamwork
• Understand and consider the needs and impacts of your own work on others
• Demonstrate an ability to problem-solve and make timely decisions
• Consistently share knowledge and information
• Submit assignments on time
• Communicate timely and often

Harassment

Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated. Physical harassment includes threats of violence or violence towards another person, such as shoving, punching, or aggressively invading another's personal space.

Sexual harassment includes any unwelcome sexual conduct (including sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature) that is either made as a condition of being a student or that creates an offensive, intimidating, or hostile environment. Sexual harassment can take many forms, including but not limited to:

• Unwanted or unwelcome physical contact or conduct of any kind, including, patting, pinching, brushing up against, hugging, cornering, kissing, fondling, or any other similar physical contact;
• Verbal abuse of a sexual nature, including sexual flirtations, advances, propositions, sexual innuendos, sexually suggestive, insulting, or graphic comments, noises, or sounds;
• Sexually explicit, suggestive, or offensive jokes;
• Demeaning, insulting, intimidating, or sexually suggestive comments about an individual’s dress, body, appearance, or personal life;
• The display or distribution of demeaning, insulting, intimidating, or sexually suggestive objects or pictures, including nude photographs, drawings, or magazine pictures;
• Demeaning, insulting, intimidating, or sexually suggestive written, recorded or electronically transmitted messages; and
• Offering an educational benefit in exchange for sexual favors or threatening an educational detriment.

Verbal harassment is verbal communication that denigrates or shows hostility toward an individual that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment for an individual for reasons including their sex, race, color, religion, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or any other protected class. Verbal harassment may include, inter alia, epithets, slurs, jokes, or other verbal or physical conduct relating to an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, or any other protected class.

This includes insulting a fellow student or staff member, cursing at another person (i.e., not just including a curse word in your speech, but attacking another with these words), repeatedly disrupting class, and using your words to demean another person. Using racial epithets, slurs directed at a marginalized group or other language meant to demean another person based on their status in a marginalized group is also considered overt verbal harassment. Verbal harassment may result in dismissal.

Inadvertently Exclusionary Language/Behavior ("microaggressions")

Flatiron Schools prohibits discrimination and harassment, whether purposeful or inadvertent, in the form of exclusionary language or behavior known as “microaggressions.” Such behavior can be difficult to define or pinpoint but can be equally harmful as overt discrimination or harassment. Microaggressions are verbal, behavioral, and environmental communications, whether intentional or unintentional, that transmit hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to exclude or target a person because they belong to a stigmatized group. Such behavior can result when one person has an internalized bias against a marginalized group such as women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, etc. and interacts with those individuals in a derogatory, subtly derogatory, or exclusionary way.

Examples of Microaggressions include:

• Being less willing to consider and listen to the ideas of female students because you view them as less skilled.
• Repetitive or intentional use of the incorrect name or pronoun for a person, or
• Making assumptions about another student’s capabilities or interests based on any protected characteristic, such as race, gender, or national origin.

Conduct and behavior does not have to be intentionally derogatory or exclusionary to constitute a microaggression. Therefore, it is important that students be aware of and address these potential biases, regardless of intent, to foster a community of inclusiveness.

To create a community that is truly inclusive of everyone, it is important for all staff, students, and alumni to confront the biases that lead to these microaggressions.

Plagiarism

Students are expected to attend Flatiron School with the utmost transparency and honesty. This means cheating, plagiarism or any unauthorized assistance is strictly forbidden. Students suspected of violating this policy will be interviewed to determine if the student has thorough and competent knowledge of the assessment and/or project deliverable. Students who are found to have violated this policy may be subject to discipline, up to and including dismissal.

Cheating occurs when a student takes an unfair or disallowed advantage which includes but is not limited to:

• Theft of or unauthorized access to an exam, answer key or other graded work from previous program offerings
• Use of an alternate, stand-in or proxy during an examination
• Use of previously authored code during an examination
• Copying from the exam or work of another person or source
• Submission or use of falsified data
• Using false statements to obtain additional time or other accommodations
• Falsification of academic credentials

Plagiarism is defined as the use of work or concepts contributed by other individuals without proper attribution or citation. Unique ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged in academic work to be graded. While students are encouraged to use outside resources to source and build their projects, the cloning and copying of repositories or other resources is expressly prohibited.

Examples of sources expected to be referenced include but are not limited to:

• Text, either written or spoken, quoted directly, or paraphrased
• Graphic elements
• Passages of music, existing either as sound or as notation
• Mathematical proofs
• Scientific data
• Concepts or material derived from the work, published or unpublished, of another person

Unauthorized assistance refers to the use of sources of support that have not been specifically authorized in this policy statement or by the instructor(s) in the completion of academic work to be graded. Such sources of support may include but are not limited to advice or help provided by another individual, published or unpublished written sources, and electronic sources. Examples of unauthorized assistance include but are not limited to:

• Collaboration on any assignment beyond the standards authorized by this policy statement and the instructor(s).
• Submission of work completed or edited in whole or in part by another person.
• Supplying or communicating unauthorized information or materials, including graded work and answer keys from previous program offerings, in any way to another student.
• Use of unauthorized information or materials, including graded work and answer keys from previous program offerings.
• Use of unauthorized devices.
• Submission for credit of previously completed graded work in a second program without first obtaining permission from the instructor(s) of the second program. In the case of concurrent programs, permission to submit the same work for credit in two programs must be obtained from the instructors of both programs.