School Climate & Safety

Job Safety vs. Student Safety

By Liana Loewus — November 03, 2010 1 min read
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All these warnings about the hazards of “friending” students on Facebook should extend to daily interactions “that might be misinterpreted and lead to dangerous accusations” as well, says Ron Isaacs at EdWize.

He poses this example:

It's Parent-Conference Night in late November. You expect to meet with one hundred parents in around two hours. To help things run smoothly you have a student hospitality host. When the evening is wrapped up it's dark and streets are empty. The student lives a few blocks away. Do you drive her home or let her take her chances? That was always a no-brainer. But in the past the decision fell one way; today it's the other.

Do you agree this one’s a “no-brainer?” When weighing the possibility of a false accusation ruining your reputation against the possibility that a student could get mugged on the way home, should you consider how bad the neighborhood is?

Or is the real moral here that teachers should preempt this sort of dicey scenario—and send that helpful student home before it gets dark?

A version of this news article first appeared in the Teaching Now blog.