Honor Code
Our Honor Code
As a member of the Trinity Episcopal School community, I pledge to:
- Be responsible for my actions
- Always do my best as an individual and as part of a team
- Respect the uniqueness and gifts of others
- Practice kindness and consideration
- Celebrate the joyful, beautiful and enduring
- Not lie, cheat or steal
I will follow this Honor Code, and I will help others do the same as ambassadors of God’s grace and everlasting love.
The Honor Pledge
In 2012, the middle school adopted a more formal honor pledge that sets expectations creating a community of integrity during the middle school years. The pledge states,
"As a child of God, I pledge that I have not cheated by giving or receiving help on this work, including plagiarizing. Moreover, I am unaware of any violation of this pledge by other students."
The Honor Council
A group of honor council members who are elected by their grade level peers in Middle School are responsible for encouraging integrity, for creating a community of trust that is core to our academic community and in life, and for holding fellow students to the expectations set out in the pledge.
Learn it, Love it, Live it
Trinity’s first class of 6th grade students were challenged to create a standard that would be honored and lived out by all who were members of the Trinity community – students, faculty, staff, parents and alumni.
In the spring of 2002, Trinity’s leadership class set out to write the School’s official Honor Code.
“At first, we all thought the code would be easy to write,” remembers Laura Good (TES Class of 2004). “We all agreed right away that honesty, loyalty and being trustworthy were important, but then we wrestled with what else to include and not include.”
The drafting and editing process took over a year and the students were challenged even further to write the code with language that would be easy to say, accept and understand by ALL Trinity students – Kindergarten and beyond.
The Honor Code, written by Trinity’s pioneer class, instills honor through the highest standards for responsibility, respect, kindness and integrity for all members of our community. The Honor Code is one that we love because its value is much greater than a punitive set of rules and it aims to teach us how to live and hold each other accountable within our community.
“Trinity’s Honor Code has absolutely stayed with me. Having the opportunity to not only live by, but help articulate the Honor Code at such a young age, instilled within me a strong sense of honor and integrity through my time in high school at St. Andrew’s School (DE) and in college at University of Virginia and now as a teacher.”
– Pemberton Heath, Class of 2004