Education & Schools Articles Page 2

12/15/2016 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

Protection of the health, safety, and well-being of children who participate in recreational activities at a summer camp, summer school program, or community and private recreation centers should be the standard operating procedure of all those who provide these services. The standard of care owed to children who participate in organized or sponsored recreational activities such as sports, dance, swimming, rock climbing and variety of other activities at a camp or other agency must be consistent with professional standards in the field. Ingraining standardized practices and responsible planning and supervision into the work habits of all employees will help to protect the employees and the agency from activity injury liability and costly litigation.

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6/8/2016 · Education & Schools

By: David Easlick

News of the tragic suicide of Marquise Braham and the resulting lawsuit against Penn State Altoona and Phi Sigma Kappa brought to the surface some very painful memories. Earlier in my career I spent several years as the Executive Director of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, a midsize International fraternity founded at Yale in 1844. Five or six US Presidents have been members(FDR was a member of the Harvard Chapter which was thrown out for not paying dues). Deke, as it is known, was international in that it had a few Canadian chapters.

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5/26/2016 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

Some of our most vulnerable children are relegated to a life away from parents, family, and their school to live where other adults take the place of their parents and are responsible for their custody or care - legally defined as in loco parentis. This occurs when children are placed in residential centers for the treatment of mental illness, schools for the deaf and blind, or similar facilities for children who require extensive medical care and management.

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3/18/2016 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

Nationwide, 7.6 million students participate in interscholastic athletics, according to U.S. News and World Report. Keeping them safe is critically important to avoid school liability and sports injury lawsuits. And when sports injury occurs, schools may be found responsible if they failed to take reasonable precautions and supervision of students in order to prevent sports injury. Parents send their children to school with the implicit expectation that schools will do whatever is necessary to keep them safe whether in the classroom or on the football field.

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2/23/2016 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

As difficult as it might be to accept and understand, abuse of children is occurring at an alarming rate in our nation's schools, daycare centers, camps, and other institutions. Even with state laws that require child abuse reporting and institutional policies that address sexual abuse prevention, identification, and reporting, abuse is not going away. More civil lawsuits are filed with each passing year, and schools and other organizations are not always appropriately responding to this epidemic.

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2/1/2016 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

In the wake of recent incidences of gun violence, school safety and security has become an increasingly pressing concern in the United States and Canada. Schools, summer camps, daycare centers, and other agencies charged with the safety of children have a duty to protect them, and their ability to do so depends on solid policies, training, and appropriate response to security threats. Laws, regulations, and internal policies designed to shield children from harm may be developed proactively in response to a risk assessment or reactively in response to an event that caused injury to a child. Both are valid options in today's climate of terroristic threats to school safety and security. Inaction is not. Schools and other child-centered programs must consider and develop appropriate responses to this new dynamic.

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12/4/2015 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

Risk of personal injury to children is reduced when activities, facilities, equipment, personnel, and supervision are brought into compliance with "standards." There are several sources of standards. Some standards are mandated by law through statutes. Additional standards are set forth by oversight authorities, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Camping Association, the National Federation of High School Athletic Associations, or the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, to name a few. Other standards involve the customary professional practice of those conducting such activities. Ignorance of such standards is no excuse for failing to comply and schools and agencies with children have a duty to be proactive about implementing standards in order to prevent student injury.

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10/28/2015 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

Many school-aged children have medical conditions about which teachers, nurses, and others who are responsible for their health, safety, and well-being should know. If not addressed in the right way by administrators, teachers, or other officials, these conditions can result in a catastrophic incident, not to mention costly litigation. A student with a known heart defect, for instance, is vulnerable in a physical education class if the teacher is not informed of the child's condition and does not institute appropriate precautions or prepared to respond in a medical emergency. If cafeteria personnel in a daycare center know that a child has a peanut allergy but fail to supervise the child appropriately, the child can go into shock if she is allowed to sit at a table where another student is eating peanut butter. In situations like these, if a plan for the child's care was either not in place or developed but not communicated to the staff, the child might suffer irreparable harm - or even die.

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9/25/2015 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

In my profession as an education administration and student supervision expert, I have observed that residential schools and boarding schools present a higher duty than day schools to supervise children and a greater opportunity for the school to be found liable for child abuse and injury. When children are living and learning in a program 24/7, staff must demonstrate not only a professional standard of care, but also a reasonable and prudent parent standard of care. Although related, these standards are distinct and must be appropriately and reasonably applied in a setting where staff serves as surrogate parents and others serve as teachers, counselors, and psychologists. When a child is sexually assaulted, administered unnecessary corporal punishment, or is injured or dies in a residential school, both of these standards need to be addressed.

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8/14/2015 · Education & Schools

By: Dr. Edward Dragan

The first responsibility of educators and those who supervise children in residential programs, day care centers, before- and after-school programs, and other settings is to make sure that these programs foster learning and care in a safe environment. Asking third graders to move a cart with a heavy TV on top, inadequate staff instruction in safe techniques to quell disruptive students, not carefully checking that the door to the pool closes and locks the way it is supposed to, excessive discipline, playground aides talking among themselves but failing to pay attention to the children, not providing a sufficient number of nighttime supervisors in a dormitory, and a school police officer not trained on how to interact with children with behavioral disorders - any of these circumstances can lead to student injury at school or death of a child and high litigation costs. The overriding professional standard of care is to protect children's health, safety, and well-being. Under this umbrella fall the development and implementation of policies, adequate staff training, and a level of supervision reasonably calculated to keep children safe.

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