Chapter 13

Teachers have all sorts of legal responsibilities today. My supervising teacher documents everything, and places them in her student files so that way she has record of it. She also uses email to communicate with parents, and this is nice because she simply prints off the emails and has documentation of conversations with parents.

Teachers have to fill out numerous paper work just to take their class of a field trip. They have to get permission and liability slips filled out by parents and arrange transportation and much more. I know when I coached basketball I had to get the parents to fill out a liability release form so their children could play. These are all important steps that could save us from legal battles occuring. Then of course there was always a couple of players who didn't have a ride to the games out of town (elementary tourneys) and they would ask me for a ride. I was always nervous to take the kids with me so what I would do is tell them I didn't have room in my car and would arrange for them to ride with another parent. I hated to do this, but what would have happened if I would have got in a crash on my way to a tournament?

Today teachers have to make sure they are careful in what they do because even thought they may be trying to help it can turn out to be detrimental to the teacher!