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Education Expert Blog on School Liability

Articles & News about School Liability

Risk of personal injury to children is reduced when activities, facilities, equipment, personnel, and supervision are brought into compliance with “standards.” There are several sources of standards. Some standards are mandated by law through statutes. Additional standards are set forth by oversight authorities, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics,...

When child abuse is alleged to have taken place in a school, daycare facility, preschool program, summer camp, or other entity responsible for the supervision and safety of children, there is always the possibility that the entity may be liable if negligence can be established. Schools and other entities with...

School coaches have a duty to protect athletes from harm, including emotional or physical harm that may result from locker room hazing. High school hazing in athletics has many beginnings — the most prominent being an attitude of superiority among senior athletes and the belief that a weaker or younger...

When a student personal injury in a public school triggers litigation, plaintiff and defendant attorneys must address the concept of governmental immunity. In general, governmental immunity shields public schools from tort litigation and liability. Governmental immunity is not universally applicable, however, depending on how the facts of a specific case...

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a “Dear Colleague” letter to college and university administrators about implementation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 in regards to campus sexual assault cases. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in...

Unquestionably, schools have a responsibility to protect children from harm. The same goes for agencies such as day care centers, summer camps, and after-school programs. Schools and agencies, however, are not the ultimate protectors; that role falls to employees, who must act on behalf of the school in a way...

Negligence of teachers, coaches, camp counselors, bus drivers and others resulting in injury to a child is ever present the news. Negligence that results in sexual abuse, death, injury from faulty equipment, and sports accidents all present opportunities for large settlements or jury verdicts. Plaintiff and defendant attorneys can follow a...

Schools have a duty to protect students from harm, including the harm inflicted or created by its own staff. While acts by a staff member resulting in injury to a student generally fit into the category of negligence, a teacher or an administrator as a state actor can generate a...

An elementary school principal claimed that a first grader violated the school’s sexual harassment policy. The boy’s crime? He was sitting behind a female classmate on the floor and put his fingers inside the waistband of her pants and touched her skin. He was accused of sexually harassing a classmate...

Wherever there are public and private schools and organizations that provide activities for children, there are stories about school sexual harassment and abuse. In West Virginia, a fifth-grade teacher started a “sex club” with some of her students. She brought them to her home to “teach” them, by demonstration, about...