Ethical Conduct and Professional Responsibilities
Professional trust rests on countless ordinary decisions about confidentiality, technology, legal duties, boundaries, accuracy, and respect.
The official Element
Element 6E: Teachers demonstrate honesty, trustworthiness, and integrity in their professional behavior and decision-making as they conduct their responsibilities with a focus on each student’s learning and well-being.
What this Element asks of an educator
Professional trust rests on countless ordinary decisions about confidentiality, technology, legal duties, boundaries, accuracy, and respect.
Read together, these indicators ask educators to make ethical conduct and professional responsibilities visible in planning, teaching, student experience, and follow-through. The aim is not to display every indicator in every lesson, but to understand the full range of the Element and select a focused practice to develop with evidence.
Official Example Indicators—and an SDLA reading
The Commission presents Example Indicators as illustrations rather than a comprehensive or required checklist. Their sequence shows the breadth of this Element and gives teachers, mentors, and coaches a shared language for focused development.
Perform non-instructional (or adjunct) duties in accordance with school…
Official indicator: Perform non-instructional (or adjunct) duties in accordance with school and district guidelines, policies, contracts, and other applicable expectations.
Interact respectfully and supportively with students
Official indicator: Interact respectfully and supportively with students, colleagues, families, guardians, and community members inside and outside the classroom.
Understand and comply with relevant laws and policies related…
Official indicator: Understand and comply with relevant laws and policies related to students’ rights and responsibilities; reporting mandates for students’ learning, behavior, health, and safety; and confidentiality protections for students, staff, and families.
Implement legal imperatives that address each student’s learning requirements…
Official indicator: Implement legal imperatives that address each student’s learning requirements by making accommodations and modifications, especially for students with disabilities and those with targeted goals.
Follow guidelines for the legal
Official indicator: Follow guidelines for the legal, social, and ethical use of technology with students and all members of the school community.
Developing the practice
Name a precise growth problem
Turn a broad aspiration into one observable practice, an action, and evidence to revisit.
Learn with other people
Use students, families, colleagues, specialists, mentors, and community partners as sources of knowledge and feedback.
Protect trust and sustainability
Attend to ethics, equity, legal responsibilities, professional boundaries, follow-through, and personal well-being.
Evidence worth noticing
- a focused professional goal connected to student experience
- reflection records showing a decision, action, evidence, and revision
- collaboration artifacts documenting roles, feedback, and follow-through
- an ethical, equity, or workload decision with its reasoning and observed effect
Evidence caution: No single artifact proves accomplished practice. Interpret evidence in context, center student experience and learning, use multiple sources, and avoid collecting identifiable information that is not necessary.
A pinch of data integration and digital learning
Digital systems can organize information, improve access, coordinate work, or shorten a feedback loop. They are valuable only when the educator can explain the human decision they support, the information they require, and how privacy, accessibility, equity, and professional responsibility are protected.
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
Connect ethical classroom decisions with SDLA’s practical privacy guidance.
Questions for reflection and coaching
- Where is ethical conduct and professional responsibilities already visible in my practice, and what evidence supports that judgment?
- Which students experience the current approach differently from the way I intend?
- Which official indicator names the most important next area for growth?
- What is one affordable, manageable adjustment I can test, and what will I look for afterward?
- Whose perspective—student, family, colleague, specialist, or community partner—would improve the next decision?
Continuum of Teaching Practice: Element 6E
This Element-specific continuum describes how practice develops from Emerging through Innovating. Compare the teacher-practice descriptions with the related evidence in students’ experience, then identify a current strength and a purposeful next step.
How to understand and use this continuum for professional growth
- Begin at Emerging and read across. Practices described at earlier levels carry forward even when they are not repeated.
- Use evidence gathered over time to identify the description that most closely reflects current practice.
- A teacher may be at different levels in different Elements, regardless of years in the profession.
- Changes in students, content, grade level, school, or responsibilities may appropriately shift practice in either direction.
- Use the continuum for reflection and goal setting, not as a stand-alone observation or evaluation instrument.
Select a level to expand it. Select it again to return to the full comparison.
Teacher practice
The teacher performs duties as directed.
The teacher interacts respectfully with students and adults.
The teacher learns and complies with laws protecting student rights and safety, including the legal and ethical use of technology.
Teacher practice
The teacher performs all required duties.
The teacher interacts respectfully and supportively with the school community.
The teacher complies with laws protecting student rights and safety, including the legal and ethical use of technology.
Teacher practice
The teacher proficiently performs duties.
The teacher consistently demonstrates respectful interactions.
The teacher collaboratively implements individualized accommodations and modifications.
The teacher complies with laws protecting student rights and safety, including the legal and ethical use of technology.
Teacher practice
The teacher models ethical behavior, integrity, and professionalism in all interactions.
The teacher models the implementation of accommodations and modifications.
The teacher proactively supports others in understanding and adhering to laws, policies, and responsibilities, including the legal and ethical use of technology.
Teacher practice
The teacher supports others to demonstrate the highest ethics, integrity, and professionalism standards.
The teacher supports others to personalize accommodations and modifications.
The teacher advocates for students' rights and needs.
The teacher collaborates to strengthen policies and practices, including legal and ethical use of technology.
Source and attribution: Continuum language reproduced from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Continuum of Teaching Practice (2025), aligned with the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (2024). This publication by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing is not copyright. It may be reproduced in the public interest, but proper attribution is requested.