Liability/Implied Consent

[ShortBridge]

I don't teach kids and I don't have employees. I am incorporated and am very strict about keeping operations and finances completely seperated from personal. We also all have a student agreement that includes a signed waiver.

I am also very careful about who I agree to teach or even invite in to visit.

 

[JR 137]

This is where the concept of defense-in-depth comes into play. You have more than one rule in place to prevent things from happening.

1. Background checks to catch someone with a documented history before they come in
2. Rules about not leaving children alone with an adult
3. Visibility, such as cameras or windows, so that interactions are documented and/or visible to the public
4. The owner must keep the staff accountable, and must rely on the staff to be held accountable

These rules don't just protect the students and staff from assault. They also protect the staff from fraudulent accusations.

The background check is only one small part of due diligence. You also have to have specific protocols and procedures, along the lines of what you said. I’d add a mandated reporter policy of some sort - that a person who sees/hears something is required to disclose it. I’m not an attorney, so I have no idea how that would be implemented in a private setting if it could be at all. But making sure employees are expected to report anything probably carries additional weight in due diligence stuff.

School employees are mandated reporters and can face criminal penalties if they know of something and don’t report it. Not just sexual stuff, but also physical threats and so on. Here’s an example: my wife’s teaching assistant (my wife’s a teacher) told my wife about a kid who’d told her daughter he was going to shoot up the school at an outdoor event the next day. She texted this to my wife around 9 pm. My wife told her she needs to alert the school administration and police. First thing the next morning, my wife asked her what came from it. The TA said she didn’t alert anyone because she was afraid for her daughter’s safety and she didn’t think the kid would do it. So my wife immediately reported it. My wife told her principal everything she knew, which wasn’t much, and explained she told her TA to report it, being it was told to the TA and the TA had the information. The TA was immediately put on unpaid suspension and subsequently fired after her due process investigation. Charges could’ve been filed but weren’t. Needless to say, no one in the education field is going to hire her, with it being on her record.