School district officials have recommended that the Palm Beach County School Board approve an offer of $200,000 to teenager Reyna Francisco, who jumped off the back of a school bus and was injured in a February 2001 incident. Francisco and a friend “had been fighting with another student earlier that day. They pushed through the bus emergency exit and jumped because they were afraid they were being taken back to school to be punished.” District officials have recommended paying a settlement rather than taking chances before a jury on Francisco’s suit charging negligent hiring and supervision of the bus driver, although neither the district nor Florida Highway Patrol investigators blame the driver for the jump. (Marc Freeman, “School Board may give $200,000 to Lake Worth teen who jumped off school bus”, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Mar. 10).
Posts Tagged ‘schools’
The way the cookie crumbles
“‘But it’s getting harder to sell,’ said Ms. Super [Laurie Super of Downingtown, Pa.,] , who was a Girl Scout. ‘Girls can’t go door to door without an adult these days. Our local Wawa stores [a Northeastern convenience chain] said that they couldn’t let the girls set up their booth anymore, because of liability issues. And the schools are already sending the kids out selling all the time.'” (Julia Moskin, “Crave Thin Mints? Girl Scout Cookies Available on eBay”, New York Times, Mar. 14).
“Student’s mom to sue in bus attack”
Jacksonville, Fla.: “The mother of a 12-year-old boy whose videotaped beating on a school bus received national attention last month has formally notified the Duval County School Board that she is suing.” Eddie Farah, attorney for Sashemia Small, “said the attackers should have been in one of the school system’s alternative schools for students with discipline problems.” School Superintendent John Fryer, however, says: “If you were to go back and penalize every student who had more than one referral … we wouldn’t have enough alternative schools.” Small’s lawyers also say they intend to sue the First Student school bus company for failing to prevent the incident. In a company policy no doubt informed by fears of litigation, “First Student drivers aren’t allowed to touch students, even to break up a fight.” (Paul Pinkham & Cynthia L. Garza, Jacksonville Times-Union, Mar. 9).
$100 background check requirement to volunteer
A “growing number of school districts nationwide are adopting rigorous security policies for parents and others who want to volunteer.” The expense and inconvenience of the $100 background checks are dissuading many parents from participating. The New York Times blames this on post-9/11 terrorism concerns, but the real culprit goes unmentioned: fear of liability for failure to screen. Even though “there is no evidence that tighter screening of parent volunteers prevents problems,” the failure to screen could be used by a plaintiffs’ lawyer to hold a school district liable or the criminal behavior of a volunteer. (Tamar Lewin, “Want to Volunteer in Schools? Be Ready for a Security Check”, New York Times, Mar. 11) (via Jacobs). One such lawsuit is pending now in New Haven, alleging the city Board of Education should have taken steps to determine if a Yale professor who participated in a School Volunteers for New Haven mentoring program was a pedophile–even though the plaintiff admits a background check wouldn’t have turned up anything, he suggests that perhaps Professor Antonio Lasaga would’ve been deterred from applying for the program. Needless to say, the plaintiff also plans to sue Yale. (Michelle Tuccitto, “School board asks to get out of Lasaga sex abuse case”, New Haven Register, Mar. 10).
Meanwhile, an Orange County appeals court ruled recently in Wiener v. Southcoast Childcare Centers Inc., that a daycare center and its landlord, a church, could potentially be held liable for failing to put up a fence “to protect the children from out-of-control cars” when Steven Abrams deliberately drove his Cadillac onto a playground at 40 mph and murdered two children. The good news is that the California Supreme Court indicated skepticism of the tenability of the claim during oral argument this week. (David Kravets, “Court debates landowner liability for unforeseen crimes”, AP, Mar. 10; Mike McKee, “Calif. Justices Wary of Liability for Others’ Crimes”, The Recorder, Mar. 11). If the California Supreme Court reverses and dismisses the case, tort reform opponents will pooh-pooh concerns about the lawsuit, but meanwhile the daycare center and church will have been forced to litigate this in front of three levels of courts at great expense.
Zero Tolerance Blog
The new year brings us Zero Intelligence, a weblog devoted to a common subject here, school zero tolerance policies.
U.K.: “Union tells teachers to end all school trips”
Britain’s “second biggest teaching union advised its 223,000 members yesterday to stop taking children on school trips because ‘society no longer appears to accept the concept of a genuine accident’.” Members of the NASUWT union have been blamed, and in one instance sentenced to a prison term, after students drowned on outings in two separate incidents. “Because of growing allegations of abuse, the union has also advised members not to give children a lift in their own vehicles, not to place themselves in a ‘one-to-one situation’ with a child and not to drive a minibus on an educational visit.” The largest British teacher’s union, NUT, disagrees with NASUWT’s stand and says it continues to view field trips as essential. (John Clare, Daily Telegraph, Feb. 19).
Update: Mormon actress can sue over script profanity
Updating our story of Jan. 24, 2000: “University of Utah theater professors may have violated the constitutional rights of a former student when they refused to allow her to omit profanity from an in-class performance, a federal appeals court ruled [Feb. 3].” Overturning a district court decision, the unanimous Tenth Circuit panel said Christina Axson-Flynn was entitled to a jury trial on her claim that the university theater program violated her rights when it refused to let her avoid reciting profane lines assigned to her characters, and that its claim to be standing on pedagogical principle was a pretext for religious discrimination. (Angie Welling, “Ex-U. actress to get jury trial in bias lawsuit”, Deseret News, Feb. 4). More: David Bernstein comments. Update Jul. 17: case settles.
From schoolhouse to courthouse
Latest newspaper account surveying the many, many ways schools get sued these days. This one is from the Tampa Bay area. (Melanie Ave, “Lawsuits drain school dollars”, St. Petersburg Times, Feb. 2)
Tennessee schools end honor roll over privacy laws
In response to parent complaints that the public posting of an Honor Roll would embarrass students without good grades, Nashville school lawyers recommended that the practice be stopped–as well as awards for good attendance and other academic achievement. When protests reached the state education department, the general counsel interpreted state privacy laws as prohibiting the dissemination of an honor roll without parental permission. While the concept seems absurd, another school system had to defend the practice of students grading each other’s exams all the way to the Supreme Court. (Matt Gouras, AP, Jan. 24). There’s no legal consequence to being overconservative and avoiding a lawsuit, and one can hardly expect bureaucrats to defend good educational policy if their wallets are potentially personally at issue.