A stabbing in my classroom!!

[responder]

I am not sure what happen in your classroom in regards to the stabbing incident. However you have an ethical and legal obligation (FERPA) to keep information private. You are not even allowed to discuss your students with other teachers in your school if they don't have contact with them. You may have changed names etc. but anyone with knowledge to this incident could infer this is about them. What if the parents were posting on this site their side of the story?

Another thing you said that bothered me is your post about parent calling you and asking you if it is o.k. for a child to play at someone else's house-and if you didn't agree you couldn't say anything. It is not our responsibility to make those decissions in the first place.

You should contact your union rep or your liability insurance company. Your homeowners insurance may even cover you.

Best of luck-but be careful.

AZ Teacher

 

[BelizeBreeze]

If you are indeed a teacher as you claim, then LEARN DAMNIT!

Quit responding to threads that are more than a month old. You accomplish nothing as the original poster is long gone and you simply waste bandwidth and time.

 

[minnesotakent]

You have been misinformed

Responder,
I suggest that you purchase a copy of "Amercian Public School Law-fifth edition" and read that parts concerning FERPA (p. 616-617, and most of chapter 12) because you are misinformed about the law.
It seems that everyone is erroring on the side of caution when disclosing information. People in education (especially administrators) have decided not to share information because they are afraid they could be liable. Their attorneys have advised them to say nothing, which is the safe thing to do. In fact, most people in the school system can share more information with each other than they currently do (at least where I work).
As far as the parent asking about their child visiting another family. In this case I knew that the family being asked about had an active investigation concerning child abuse and neglect. THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD HAVE KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT AND PUT A CHILD IN DANGER. The potential damage to that child overrode confidentiality. If need be, I would put my fate in a jury in a situation like this.