Posted on 07/06/2007 7:40:51 PM PDT by Coleus
Even after the final bell rings, a school has an obligation to make sure the children in its care are heading home safely, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday in a unanimous decision that is expected to affect schools across New Jersey. The court found that just as schools are responsible for students' safety during classes, they also must protect them from danger as they are dismissed -- especially young kids like the 9-year-old Pleasantville boy at the center of the case, who was struck by a car after school and paralyzed.
"As the school-time trustees of our most cherished and vulnerable citizens, educators have the responsibility to protect the children in their care," wrote Chief Justice James Zazzali. "Because a school's duty to exercise reasonable care for the children in its custody is integral to our public education system, the duty does not summarily disappear when the school bell rings." The high court tempered its ruling, acknowledging that schools' duty to supervise students' safety after classes is limited and their obligation "does not diminish the responsibilities that parents or guardians have to their children."
That said, the court also said schools must create age-sensitive dismissal polices, and directed the Department of Education to formulate guidelines. Officials at the department were reviewing the decision yesterday, a spokesman said. Legal experts said the decision has the potential to touch every district in the state. "The court reaffirmed today the strong state interest in protecting children. ... It no doubt will prompt school districts to review their existing policies," said former Justice Peter Verniero.
Calling it a reasonable decision, Mike Yaple, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, said the ruling also could have a financial impact on some districts that decide to hire additional staff to monitor dismissal.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Well I would like to know the circumstances of what happened but I’m not going to register for “the rest of the story”.
Don't even get me started.
It is not the state's obligation to raise and care for the kids. At least it didn't use to be.
What happened to the days when all a school was required to do was “school us”. Now they are required to be nannies, teachers and social workers.
Just put in fake info like I did.
There was an early dismissal that day, the boy got out at 1:30 and left school grounds with friends to play. At 3:50 he was struck by a car several blocks from the school. The school claims it sent home proper notification, but the family claims they did not know. The boys older brother arrived at school at the normal time to pick him up and couldn’t find him. The family has settled with the driver of the car.
The boy is paralized from the neck down.
Well I would like to know the circumstances of what happened but I’m not going to register for “the rest of the story”. >>>
it’s simple put in a zip code, pick a year and pick a gender...takes 10 seconds
I live about 3/4 of a mile from my kids' elementary school. One of our local busy body parents reported my boys for something they were doing once they got into my front yard to the principal. They were called into the office and lectured the next morning.
I was not pleased.
Parents say they weren’t aware of early dismissal and school should have been in charge of supervising child.
School says it gave several notices of early dismissal.
Guess there is now a duty to walk kids home when parents fail their duty to read the notices sent home from school and pick up their kids.
I could but it’s a principal thing. I shouldn’t have too.
It’s a principle thing “two” :’)
The other point I always made when the schools had early dismissal was why the heck they needed to take a half day. With ever increasing school taxes, I figured they were being lazy. They would have in-school training - it was usually something hokey that sounded like a joke. I would always tease the teachers and roll my eyes. LOL
I'm getting so sick and tired of whiny school administrators telling the parents they don't do enough, and feel they have to stick their nose into every personal detail of the child. TEACH THEM. GEEAWD. Do YOUR job well, then we'll talk about a promotion to parent. What they do after school and how they're getting along with their boyfriend is MY department. And do. not. get me started on salaries/benefits. I worked certified payroll. Puleeze. Underpaid my *#^^.
“Just put in fake info like I did.”
You use fake information? Why I never........
I never got notice of short days for the last week of school for my son’s school.
I regularly go online because the school never sends home any kind of newsletters, or any kind of information to the parents.
I know a lot of parents do not go online to get information, and I wonder how they found out about the changes in the school times.
If the school failed to notify the parents of the change in school times, then I do believe the school was negligent.
At my son’s middle school, the whole last week was half days, and the kids did nothing.
When I was in middle school, we had finals the last week of school, even on the very last day of school.
My son only had 1 final, and that was in math.
“There was an early dismissal that day, the boy got out at 1:30 and left school grounds with friends to play. At 3:50 he was struck by a car several blocks from the school. The school claims it sent home proper notification, but the family claims they did not know. The boys older brother arrived at school at the normal time to pick him up and couldn’t find him. The family has settled with the driver of the car.”
hmmm. Schools hand out forms to families to fill out in cases of early dismissals.
Most families send it back that they will follow normal procedure as full days.
So this boy was not a busser - he waited for his brother each day.
Good policy would have the boy waiting inside the school until an assigned adult could release the boy with the brother.
But here it seems the boy was allowed to make an unsupervised exit - no adults knowing for sure where the kid is going.
The school did screw up here.
If they had held onto the boy until brother showed up - and as time ticked by - they simply could have called home and cleared up the misunderstanding about the early dismissal.
Agreed.
I do wonder what the normal routine for this boy was. If it was typical for the brother to pick him up, and the brother didn't show that day (not knowing it was early day), AND the teachers just let the boy leave to walk home, that would be negligent.
I have not seen one school in my district (elemetary schools, anyway) which allows students to walk home unattended. Students either get on a bus, are picked up by someone else, or go to the afterschool program.
“With ever increasing school taxes, I figured they were being lazy.”
Ahhh...the pleasure of fulfilling state mandates.
Ain’t NY state grand?
In California schools have been expected to deal with any discipline issues occurring between students of that school either while on the way to school or going home from school. From my perspective this came about when too many parents of bullies failed to deal with their child bullying behavior of other students while they walked to or from school. While I agree that parents need to be held accountable for their children’s behavior, I also agree that there are those parents who fail and someone must pick up the slack. Too bad that our schools are being forced into also being the parent of these children.
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