{"id":493,"date":"2013-04-11T17:51:04","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T17:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/education-expert.com\/?p=493"},"modified":"2013-04-11T17:51:20","modified_gmt":"2013-04-11T17:51:20","slug":"sexual-harassment-in-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/education-expert.com\/NewEE\/sexual-harassment-in-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Addressing Sexual Harassment in Schools to Avoid Lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"School<\/a>An elementary school principal claimed that a first grader violated the school\u2019s sexual harassment policy. The boy\u2019s 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 and suspended from school for three days and the school contacted the police, Department of Social Services and the District Attorney\u2019s office.\u00a0 The boy\u2019s outraged parents sued the city and the school for not handling the situation appropriately and it ended up costing the school $50,000 in legal fees \u2014 plus insurance payouts totaling nearly a quarter million dollars.<\/p>\n

The city settled the case and as part of the settlement the city agreed that the superintendent would approve appropriate training for the school\u2019s principal who was overzealous in applying the school\u2019s sexual harassment policy. The superintendent, meanwhile, was underzealous about training and supervising the principal. The school may have had a reasonable sexual harassment policy, but the principal might not have had the right understanding of the policy as it applied to six-year-olds to reasonably implement it. The result was the expenditure of a lot of money and time when the principal could have dealt with the situation simply by having a \u201cteaching moment\u201d discussion with both students, especially the six year old explaining that what he did was inappropriate and ask the parents to follow up at home.\u00a0 Children this age don\u2019t even know what sexual harassment is.<\/p>\n

In another case, a school was ordered to pay $68,000 to a former student for failing to take reasonable actions to stop other kids from harassing him over their perception of his sexual orientation. The school disciplined the students and required them to attend counseling, but the harassment continued. The court determined that even though the school made some effort to end the harassment, its actions were ineffective.<\/p>\n

Schools need to take reasonable and effective measures to protect students from harm. The points of contention were whether school officials responded quickly and adequately to protect the student from harm. Was the school\u2019s response reasonable? The school thought so because it followed the student discipline code. Was it effective? When the harassment continued, the school didn\u2019t modify its approach. Thus, the court concluded, the faculty\u2019s actions were not only ineffective but also not reasonable. This school may have been zealous in its attempt to discipline students \u2014 but was underzealous in its determination to appropriately resolve the issue and protect the student from harm.<\/p>\n

A teacher in another case was accused on several occasions of inappropriately touching students. Investigation by the district revealed nothing of a sexual nature. Later, the teacher asked a student to report to his office. There, the student claimed, the teacher sexually touched her and another student, who was the plaintiff in this case.<\/p>\n

An investigation by law enforcement and child services personnel into this incident revealed that this teacher had, in fact, victimized several other students. The teacher was incarcerated for 10 years \u2014 but the school district was found not liable for the educator\u2019s actions, either under Title IX (see our previous article on Title IX<\/a>) or Section 1983<\/a>. The court could attach no liability for the Title IX claim because school officials had no actual knowledge that this teacher had been engaged in sexual misconduct. Addressing the Title IX action, previous reports about touching had been investigated and resolved.\u00a0 The school determined that there was no merit to the reports.\u00a0 Therefore, the school could claim it had no actual knowledge for sexual misconduct. The court ruled that the Section 1983 substantive due process claim would not survive the deliberate indifference test because there was no knowledge of sexual misconduct and there was no reckless disregard for student safety. The school\u2019s decisions about the teacher\u2019s status after the initial investigation were based on what it knew, the court ruled, so those decisions were appropriate under the circumstances.<\/p>\n

A school can never know everything that goes on between teachers and students. Could the school officials have watched the teacher more carefully following the initial complaint of him touching students? Yes, and that would have been an administrative decision. Was it mandatory? No. Would it have curtailed his inappropriate conduct with students? Maybe. Even with closer supervision after the first complaint, however, many teachers just don\u2019t act in a sexual way with students in front of administrators or other teachers.<\/p>\n

Questions regarding Sexual Harassment in Schools<\/b><\/p>\n

The questions in all three of these cases are:<\/p>\n