Cindy Maldonado
March 4, 2015
Grand Canyon University: EDA 555
Preempting Liability

Preempting Liability
Different liability issues are addressed in the campus of Del Castillo Elementary. The following would be some of the issues that will be covered in this paper: safety in school, intentional and unintentional torts, liability and negligence, supervisor duties, FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), and student record confidentiality.
School safety is and should always be a key component of their campus. As mentioned by Gay (2014), “Representatives from each school safety stakeholder group must gather to discuss, assess, plan and evaluate the safety of the school community.” (pg. 22). Who are these stakeholders? It includes everyone from parents, teachers, counselors, custodians, paraprofessionals, administrators, and even the cafeteria staff. Throughout the year Del Castillo Elementary practices various emergency procedures to assert them safety of our students. With practicing these emergency procedures we get to see firsthand if the students and staff knows what to do in case a real life emergency occurs. We currently practice fire drills, soft lockdown, hard lockdown, and shelter in place. Teachers are also aware that their classroom doors must be locked once instructional time starts and it must remained locked until the last student exits the classroom. During a fire drill each teacher is assigned to a certain area they must walk their students to but, a teacher must not forget to take their student emergency cards with them in case they cannot go back into the classroom students’ phone numbers are readily available with them to access parent information. Fire drills are scheduled once every six weeks. Lockdowns are procedures that are held to protect our students and the rest of the stakeholders either from a harmful suspect that might either be armed or unarmed. That person should be identified as a threat the people working in the campus. Teachers train the students to kneel in a corner of the classroom where they are less visible to the threatening person, lights must be turned off, and the teacher must place a green card outside her classroom if all her students are accounted for or a red card if he or she has a student missing. Lockdowns are also practiced once every six weeks. Torts are defined as a wrong doing act that leads to legal civil liability and it causes some sort of damage to a victim. We have both intentional and unintentional torts. As defined by Newton (2008) [In unintentional torts, the injury occurs from an accidental harm that one person causes to another. An economic approach to unintentional torts seeks to minimize the costs of accidents by allocating the costs of accidents resulting in injury to the persons or parties who are in the best position to avoid or minimize the losses.] (pg. 4). Unintentional torts would be seen a negligent actions toward students. A part of the mission of Del Castillo Elementary is protecting students. Supervising behavior is the key component that assures and reduces the cases of accidents in our campus. Every morning there are teachers assigned to help supervise the cafeteria, gym, and the 5th grade hallway. These are the areas that our students spent their mornings either having breakfast for our pre-kinder through first grade students, waiting for their classroom teacher to pick them up at 8:00 am for our second through fifth grade students, or simply just going to the restroom. Teachers are assigned 3 weeks of duty in the fall semester and another 3 weeks in the spring semester. This kind of supervision is needed to avoid any kind of negligence cases being brought up against the campus. As noted by Dagget (2014) “Negligence claims may also lie against the school, either for its own negligence related to its legal duty to reasonably supervise students, or vicarious liability for the torts of its employees and other agents.” (pg. 304). Custodians also play an important role in this matter. They need to assure that the hallways are clear of any hazardous materials, bathrooms must be cleaned and disinfected, and that all restroom items are stocked properly in the entire campus. Teachers need to be responsible for their actions when teaching students. Negligence in schools usually involves lack of supervision of a teacher. However, some situations do not necessary deal with the students but the faculty and the staff. For example, there was a teacher at one of the elementary schools that fell and broke her leg and the damage was so bad that they had to amputate the limb. We are lucky enough count with a school district that does provide workers compensation. But sometimes the emotional damage is stronger that the physical damage that got done to the person involved in the incident. The Family and

References
Gay, M. i. (2014). SCHOOL SAFETY: Lessons After Loss. Techniques: Connecting Education & Careers, 89(7), 20-25
Newton, H. (2008). Economic Analysis of Law. Research Starters Business (Online Edition)
Daggett, L. M. (2014). Reasonable Supervision of Special Students: The Impact of Disability on School Liability for Student Injury. Journal Of Law & Education, 43(3), 303-366.