Updated 11/2/2023

At the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (“CTY”), we are extremely fortunate to have a supportive family community. Our families, parents, and guardians recognize that supporting the needs of advanced learners effectively requires a partnership among families, staff, and the wider CTY community. The purpose of the Family Code of Conduct is to provide a mutual understanding to all parents/guardians of students enrolled in CTY, as well as visitors to our in-person sites, about conduct expectations while students are enrolled and when interacting with CTY employees and/or students. CTY may alter and amend this Code from time to time.

General Principles

We expect parents/guardians and visitors to have a fundamental understanding and commitment to the following general principles:

  • Teachers, administrators, and parents/guardians want all students to learn in a safe environment.
  • Teachers, administrators, and parents/guardians must work together for the benefit of all students.
  • All parents/guardians and visitors, as well as all members of the CTY community, deserve to be treated with civility.
  • Concerns must be shared through appropriate channels so they can be dealt with appropriately and effectively. 
  • Staff may not always be immediately available to speak with families. The only way to ensure that families are able to speak with a staff member or administrator is to schedule an appointment. Staff and administrators have a practice of attempting to return all phone calls/e-mails within 24 hours. Calls and visits will be addressed in alignment with this practice if someone is not immediately available to speak with families.

Prohibited Behaviors

To provide a peaceful and safe environment, CTY prohibits the following behaviors by parents/guardians and visitors:

  • Abusive, threatening, profane or harassing communication, either in person, by e-mail or text/voicemail/phone or other written or verbal communication.
  • Disruptive behavior that interferes, or threatens to interfere, with CTY operations, including the effective operation of a classroom (in person or online), an employee’s office or at an in-person site, including on weekends, during pick up, or in common or public spaces.
  • Threatening to do bodily harm to a CTY employee, visitor, fellow parent/guardian or student.
  • Threatening to damage the property of a CTY employee, visitor, fellow parent/guardian or student.
  • Damage or destruction of school property.
  • Excessive unscheduled campus visits, e-mails, text/voicemail/phone messages or other written or oral communications.
  • The use of physical aggression toward another adult or child. This includes physical punishment against one’s own child on CTY premises or observed by a member of CTY community online. 
  • Approaching someone else’s child to discuss with or chastise them because of perceived or real actions toward their own child. Such an approach to a child may be pursued as an assault and law enforcement may be engaged.

Social Media

Social media websites have increasingly been used in education to air complaints or share inappropriate information (for example, naming children involved or believed to be involved in incidents, sharing confidential information, making allegations or accusations, or sharing falsehoods). CTY considers the use of social media and digital platforms in this way to be not in the best interests of students or the whole CTY community. Families’ concerns should be made through the appropriate channels by speaking to the site leadership or program management so that they can be dealt with fairly and effectively for all concerned.

Should a CTY student or parent/guardian of a CTY student post false or defamatory statements on social, digital, or messaging platforms, about CTY or members of the CTY community, they will be reported to that platform and enrollment in future CTY programs may be denied.

Consequences

Depending upon the severity of the incident, parents/guardians or visitors may be ejected from or otherwise banned from sites and/or participation in CTY under criminal trespass laws. In situations involving lesser infractions or where remediation is viable, a warning will be provided. Should a parent/guardian or visitor fail to heed the direction issued in the warning, other restrictions designed to deter the conduct will follow.

At CTY, families also have the right to be treated with civility. CTY holds administrators, instructors, and all staff to these same standards. If a parent or guardian experiences behaviors that are inconsistent with these standards, they should contact CTY’s senior director for family engagement so that the concerns can be addressed.