Acceptable Use of Technology and Electronic Communications Policy

1. Purpose and scope

Am-Can Business & Tech School is an Ontario private secondary school seeking authority to grant credits toward the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. This policy protects the academic integrity of the school's credit courses, supports a safe and inclusive digital learning environment under the Ontario Human Rights Code and the school's safe schools standards, safeguards student personal information, and sets clear boundaries for digital conduct by students, teachers and staff.

It applies to every user of the school's systems: students, parents and guardians, teachers, staff and contractors.

2. Accounts and credential confidentiality

Each student is issued a unique account to reach their course materials, assessments and discussion forums. A student must not share those credentials with any other person, including classmates, friends, family members or an external tutor.

A student who believes their account has been used by someone else must tell the school immediately. The school will secure the account and record what happened.

3. Identity verification

The portal records sign in times, session durations and navigation within the course. Any action taken under a student's account is attributed to that student. Using third party software, proxy servers or a virtual private network to hide or misrepresent identity or location is prohibited.

Identity is verified against the photographic identification held on the student record before the result of a final evaluation is released. The full protocol is in the Final Examination and Proctoring Guide.

4. Administrative data security

To protect student records, the Ontario Education Number and the school's Ontario School Information System data, administrative staff work under a strict access mandate. Staff sign in to the Ontario Education Number and Ontario School Information System databases only from school owned computers connected directly to the school's secure internal network at Unit B, 99 Sante Drive, Vaughan, Ontario. Remote administrative access to those systems is prohibited.

5. Prohibited conduct

• Creating or sending offensive, obscene or indecent documents, images or comments.
• Creating or sending material designed to cause annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety to another person.
• Creating or sending defamatory material.
• Sending unsolicited commercial or advertising material to students, teachers or staff.
• Plagiarism and cheating. Presenting another person's work as your own, copying from a source without attribution, using a generative artificial intelligence tool where the teacher has not permitted it, buying work, or sharing examination material. See the Academic Integrity and Anti-Plagiarism Policy.
• Identity misrepresentation. Sharing an account, or allowing another person to complete course work or an assessment in your name.
• Unauthorised access to another person's account, files or network services.
• Corrupting or destroying another user's data, or deliberately causing faults that staff must then troubleshoot.
• Sharing the contact details, messages or work of a classmate or a member of staff without their consent.
• Denial of service attacks or any other deliberate disruption of school systems.
• Introducing viruses, spyware or any other malicious software.
• Continuing to use software, an account or a system after a formal security warning about it.
• Attempting to circumvent the controls on the examination platform.

6. Respectful communication and cyberbullying

Communication in discussion forums, group threads and messages must be academic, professional and respectful.

Under section 1 of the Education Act, bullying includes behaviour carried out by physical, verbal, electronic, written or other means. Cyberbullying includes creating a web page, profile or blog in which the creator assumes the identity of another person, impersonating another person as the author of content, and using email, portal messaging or chat to send harassing, intimidating or threatening messages to a student or a member of staff.

Conduct of this kind is dealt with under the Anti-Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination Policy and the Code of Conduct and Safe Schools Policy.

7. Activity records and how attendance is measured

The portal keeps an activity record for every student. That record is evidence the teacher uses when assessing learning and participation, and it is the school's audit trail for the 110 scheduled instructional hours in each course. It is not the attendance mark.

The attendance and participation component is worth 15 per cent of the final mark in Grades 9 and 10 and 10 per cent in Grades 11 and 12. The full rules, including what counts as an excused non completion, are in the Attendance and Intake Policy.

8. If a student stops working

The school runs six fixed sessions a year, each six study weeks long. There is no open ended completion window, and a course is not self paced across months.

1. The assigned teacher contacts the student, and the parent or guardian of a student under 18, within two school days of a missed weekly milestone.
2. Where there is no response, the Principal telephones the parent or guardian of a student under 18, writes to the address on the student record, and attempts the emergency contact. Every attempt is logged.
3. Where no contact is established within ten school days of the first missed deadline, the Principal determines the student's status in the session, records the decision and the reasons in the Ontario Student Record, and notifies the parent or guardian in writing.

Disengagement is not misconduct and is not dealt with as a discipline matter. See section 8 of the Code of Conduct and Safe Schools Policy.

9. Withdrawal and full disclosure, Grades 11 and 12

A student who withdraws from a Grade 11 or Grade 12 course within five instructional days after the mid-session report card is issued has no entry made on the Ontario Student Transcript. A student who withdraws after that deadline has the course entered, with a W in the credit column and the percentage mark at the time of withdrawal in the grade column. Grade 9 and Grade 10 withdrawals are never recorded.

10. Consequences of misuse

Consequences are progressive and proportionate. Before a decision is made final, the user is told what is alleged and given the opportunity to respond, and the decision is given in writing with reasons.

• A formal written warning to the student and, for a student under 18, to the parent or guardian.
• Where the misuse concerns submitted work, the academic consequences in the Academic Integrity and Anti-Plagiarism Policy, which may include a mark of zero on the affected task, with the finding recorded in the Ontario Student Record.
• Temporary suspension of portal access while the Principal reviews the matter.
• Removal from the course and expulsion from the school. Any refund is governed by the Financial and Refund Policy and is separate from the disciplinary decision.
• Where conduct may be criminal, for example a cyber attack, distribution of illegal material or criminal harassment, referral to the police.

A student, or the parent or guardian of a student under 18, who disagrees with a decision may use the Dispute Resolution and Academic Appeals Process.

11. Ownership, regulation and privacy

Am-Can Business & Tech School is operated by AM-CAN BUSINESS AND LMS SERVICES MANAGEMENT LTD. and is registered as a private secondary school with the Ontario Ministry of Education. The school's Board School Identification number is pending validation and formal inspection.

All platform design, databases, digital content and instructional assets remain the intellectual property of AM-CAN BUSINESS AND LMS SERVICES MANAGEMENT LTD. Students may use school materials for their own study and may not redistribute them or the contributions of other students.

Personal information collected through the school's systems is stored securely and is used only for educational and compliance purposes. How it is collected, used and protected is set out in the Privacy Policy, and student records are governed by the Ontario Student Record Management Policy.

How courses are delivered: the two attendance formats

Every course at this school is delivered online and asynchronously. There are no set class times. The school offers two attendance formats and the student chooses one at enrolment. Every one of the school's 26 courses is available in both formats in every session, and a student may ask to change format between sessions.

The course is identical in both formats: the same learning portal, the same unit materials, the same 110 scheduled instructional hours, the same weekly milestones and deadlines, the same assessments and rubrics, the same assigned Ontario Certified Teacher, and the same final mark composition. The format determines where a student studies, not what the course is or how it is taught. Students in both formats share one cohort discussion forum.

Attendance at the Vaughan campus is a facility the school provides, not a requirement of any course. A student in the on-site format who studies remotely on a given day is not marked absent and loses no mark, because attendance at this school means completion of the weekly milestones, not physical presence. No course requires a student to be physically present at any time, except where the student chooses to write the final examination on site. Every course therefore remains an online learning credit under Policy/Program Memorandum 167 in both formats.