Parental Guidance

A couple of parents 'n education stories today:

First, from the WSJ, a piece on parental involvement in public schools - how one school district discourages it and how parental involvement in Arizona schools is welcomed - seemingly because of the impact of intensive school choice in that state.

Then, from the NYPost, this story:

Catholic-school parents and students are being asked to limit their right to sue the New York Archdiocese as a condition of enrollment — a demand that is enraging parents. Under a new clause added to handbooks distributed last week at the archdiocese's 289 schools in Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island and upstate, students and parents must agree to not sue the archdiocese, their parish or school over disciplinary and academic measures such as expulsion or being held back.

School administrators, teachers and staff are also exempt from any legal liability under the contract, which commits the signer to all conditions in the handbook and must be signed by parents and by students above second grade.

Well, in regard to the latter story....it's a good thing. Unless you're in education, you have no idea how the threat of lawsuits has constrained schools, both public and private, from handing out discipline and academic consequences. I could tell you stories.....

In my last teaching gig, in a Catholic school in Florida, the threat of lawsuits from parents was everpresent. Of course, in small Catholic high schools, struggling for enrollment, administrators are scared of parents anyway - scared that they'll pull the kids out, and there goes that tuition. But as the 90's rolled on, lawsuits really became a factor.

Parents marched into the school threatening lawsuits when their kids were deemed academically ineligable for sports. Parents threatened lawsuits when their kids were about to legitimately, of their own free will, fail a class and threaten their graduation status. One year, a couple of nights before graduation, some seniors got into the school (they might have stayed there past closing time - I don't think there was any criminal breaking-in activity) and trashed it. They poured motor oil down the hallways, etc. One would think there would be serious consequences. There weren't - and all because the parents immediately came in, and threatened lawsuits if their kids weren't allowed to graduate.

This is the environment, and I see nothing wrong with the Archdiocese making this requirement. Note that it's very specific - academic and discipline-related. I would think that would be nothing but a relief.

I never got threatened with a lawsuit, but my very first year in that Florida school - perhaps the first couple of weeks, I got an enraged call and demand for a meeting with a parent. Her daughter had said something rather stupid in class, and I had said, "That's a pretty ditzy response to the question.." and the mom was angry because,she claimed, I had called her daughter a ditz. No, I didn't. I said her answer was ditzy. There's a difference. (So I was blunt. Okay. That's life in high school.)

I think we parted on good terms, and the daughter, whom I did like, has made her way in the world. A ditzy way? I dunno. You decide.

Comments

[Peter]

It's time for America to wake up to a simple fact: a lawsuit isn't the only way to object to something. Sometimes it's the worst way.

Narrowly drawn, as it appears to be, this seems to me to be a good idea. Surely there will be some disciplinary and other actions in these schools that will seem to someone to be unfair or unreasonable. The folks involved will have to make their case with the administrators, with other parents, through publicity etc. - just not in the courts. That is not an unreasonable limitation.

OR - the school system could raise its tuition by an escalating specific amount designated as 'lawyer surcharge' and continue to litigate stupid things.

I prefer the former!

[Gen X Revert]

I posted about this article on my blog. It was always this way at the Catholic High School I attended. If students and parents do not approve of the school's disciplinary or academic ways, then they can go elsewhere. Since the school is such a good one and it is hard to get into, very few complain. The Post is making much ado about nothing with this story (which the Post tends to do).

[Rich Leonardi]

This is the environment, and I see nothing wrong with the Archdiocese making this requirement. Note that it's very specific - academic and discipline-related. I would think that would be nothing but a relief.

I agree. Second to the presence of dissenting staff members, as a parent of two (soon to be four) students in Catholic schools, the biggest problem these institutions face is their own timidity.

"Thou Shalt Not Offend" has become the 11th Commandment.

[Ed Deluzain]

I retired last year after 33 years in education (2 of them in Catholic high schools in Louisiana; 31 of them in public schools in Florida), and I'm concerned about the Catholic Archdiocese of New York's insistence on that "hold harmless" statement they want parents and children above second grade (the "age of reason" being 7, after all) to sign saying they won't sue for various reasons.

First, I don't think parents are nearly as litigeous as you think they are. At least they weren't in my experience, either in the Catholic high schools I taught in or in the public schools of Florida. In fact, I can't think of a single lawsuit filed against a teacher in my 33 years, and I spent 11 of those years at the district administrative level, so I would have known about such lawsuits.

Second, given the recent spate of lawsuits against Catholic clergy and religious for sexual abuse, that kind of statement, signed by parents and second graders "who had reached the use of reason," could easily be used to negate a rightful lawsuit for sexual abuse. I would strongly object to any pre-facto abrogation of legal rights for myself as a parent or for my children as individuals. If the abuse scandal has taught us anything, it's that the Church cannot be trusted to do the right thing by kids. Or by anybody, maybe. How you can think that is a good thing is beyond me.

I'm going to post this on my own blog as well.

[Ed Deluzain]

I retired last year after 33 years in education (2 of them in Catholic high schools in Louisiana; 31 of them in public schools in Florida), and I'm concerned about the Catholic Archdiocese of New York's insistence on that "hold harmless" statement they want parents and children above second grade (the "age of reason" being 7, after all) to sign saying they won't sue for various reasons.

First, I don't think parents are nearly as litigeous as you think they are. At least they weren't in my experience, either in the Catholic high schools I taught in or in the public schools of Florida. In fact, I can't think of a single lawsuit filed against a teacher in my 33 years, and I spent 11 of those years at the district administrative level, so I would have known about such lawsuits.

Second, given the recent spate of lawsuits against Catholic clergy and religious for sexual abuse, that kind of statement, signed by parents and second graders "who had reached the use of reason," could easily be used to negate a rightful lawsuit for sexual abuse. I would strongly object to any pre-facto abrogation of legal rights for myself as a parent or for my children as individuals. If the abuse scandal has taught us anything, it's that the Church cannot be trusted to do the right thing by kids. Or by anybody, maybe. How you can think that is a good thing is beyond me.

I'm going to post this on my own blog as well.

[Ed Deluzain]

I retired last year after 33 years in education (2 of them in Catholic high schools in Louisiana; 31 of them in public schools in Florida), and I'm concerned about the Catholic Archdiocese of New York's insistence on that "hold harmless" statement they want parents and children above second grade (the "age of reason" being 7, after all) to sign saying they won't sue for various reasons.

First, I don't think parents are nearly as litigeous as you think they are. At least they weren't in my experience, either in the Catholic high schools I taught in or in the public schools of Florida. In fact, I can't think of a single lawsuit filed against a teacher in my 33 years, and I spent 11 of those years at the district administrative level, so I would have known about such lawsuits.

Second, given the recent spate of lawsuits against Catholic clergy and religious for sexual abuse, that kind of statement, signed by parents and second graders "who had reached the use of reason," could easily be used to negate a rightful lawsuit for sexual abuse. I would strongly object to any pre-facto abrogation of legal rights for myself as a parent or for my children as individuals. If the abuse scandal has taught us anything, it's that the Church cannot be trusted to do the right thing by kids. Or by anybody, maybe. How you can think that is a good thing is beyond me.

I'm going to post this on my own blog as well.

[Ed Deluzain]

I'm sorry to have posted my comment 3 times, but your system for posting made me think I was only doing it once.
ED

[Gen X Revert]

This has nothing to do with that stuff Ed, it is simply about academic and disciplinary stuff. These are two main reasons why many send their kid to Catholic schools.
"The [clause] spells out for parents what has long been the case: that parents and students give up their rights to sue Catholic schools on matters of academics and discipline," Zwilling said.
He stressed that the contract does not pertain to criminal acts such as physical or sexual abuse of a child or accidents on school grounds resulting from negligence."