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Are you in favor of immunity for Police and Firefighters?
No
Yes…and no…and a “but.”
I think there needs to be a threshold which should be, putting very simply, did the educational staff member or their action reflect proper expected professional responsibility? If yes, then there should be appropriate protections. If no, and especially if negligent, then the educator should get what is appropriate in civil or criminal proceedings. The “but” is how those determinations are made which unfortunately means some sort of lawsuit and a determination by a judge. This is a great idea in concept, but harder to appropriately implement.
I agree. It’s not a black and white issue by any means. CPS mandated reporters is a law. In theory, these professionals who failed to report broke the law. I guess that one is black and white. The ppl at the school in my district who did not report, honestly thought reporting what they saw to the principal was due diligence. It wasn’t.
Dealing with a credible threat or when facing one red flag after another in terms of a safety threat (personal or otherwise) is where it can get fuzzy.
A really important conversation to have. I’m not sure where I would fall on it, to be completely honest. The complacency it would cause would be a concern, but not having any immunity is also an issue. There is a lot to unpack.
Yes, but there is A LOT of grey areas that would need discussed and ironed out.
I don’t understand the idea of government immunity. I think that the responsibility of the individual should be determined based on the situation and the facts for the case being tried.
So no. No blanket immunity for anything. But litigation used as lawfare to merely hinder or harass should be able to be penalized as well. To me, this is one of the reason that we have judges. They are supposed to judge whether or not a case has merit before wasting someone’s time in court.
This is a complicated issue. I think frivolous lawsuits are a systemic issue and need harsher penalties for the waste they incur. Unfortunately, though, we have trained people that it pays, especially in school districts. Rather than fight an expensive case in court, they will likely settle 99% of the time, which makes it "easy" to go after everyone in the district from Superintendent to Groundskeeper. But financial impact aside, it can ruin lives. In my district, a student committed suicide (at home) and the family sued. The school staff were harassed at work by strangers and put through the wringer justifying every single action being dissected under a microscope. And even though they were cleared of wrongdoing (in fact, the family had been reported multiple times to CPS over the years...), the district settled with the family. The result? The staff were traumatized, morale was destroyed, their school reputation marred, and at least one employee went out on stress leave and ultimately quit. So while total immunity is probably not the answer, there should be better policies in place that protect those who are dragged into these situations. I'm not smart enough to know what those are, but the current system could use some tweaking.
I think in the Oxford Michigan case, the families of the dead and wounded naturally sued the district, especially after it came out that the student had the gun in his bag in the office and, per what I read there were many very blatant red flags. I just don’t think they had any mental health workers who are trained to pick up on those red flags and to purse them further. In the schools defense, the teacher did a great job spotting this killers strange behavior and made mention of it in notes as well as verbally and took pictures of his bizarre but telling drawings. And, someone from the school called both parents bc the staff surmised that Crumbly was suicidal (I’d argue he could swing from suicidal to homicidal and back). Parents came, talk to the counselor and principal but in the end parents refused to take their son home. I think in this case, I’d advise the parents that if they can’t take their son home, and bc we believe he was suicidal, we’d be calling the police to take the student to the hospital. That always works. But they just let the killer stay in school…until the rampage started.
In the end immunity was granted to the school staff.
I do see your point of being wrongfully accused though. Sometimes if we know a student is unpredictable and overly sexualized due to past abuse we will have a daily plan to hopefully help the teacher bc we’d be afraid of a false claim from the student. We’d warn the teachers as well.
Qualified immunity should have parameters in all aspects with government officials. No one should be completely immune from civil suit. For example if a firefighter has inadvertently hurt someone during a lifesaving measure then they should not be sued. If something happens on purpose they should be sued. Goes with all government officials including local, state, and federal officials.
Cont- this is something that I’ve thought about more than once. For example, we had a case of teacher abuse in one of our schools. This was in 2010 I think. Many staff witnessed that this teacher forcefully grabbed and yanked students daily ( teachers, the principal, social worker and psychologist and paraprofessionals) but bc everyone reported it it to the principal and nobody made a CPS 3200 report they were all fired. It was a huge legal mess. So in this case, no governmental immunity was given. Bc it happened in the school, ppl didn’t think to call CPS.
Now, take the Oxford mass shooting. If you know anything about this case, the school personnel who interacted with Ethan Crumbly the day of the shooting, even though the perpetrator had an automatic type weapon in his bag on his person, in the office with his parents and staff, but nobody saw the need to check his backpack despite all the red flags and telling signs. Parents sued the school, the staff working on this case the day of the shooting got governmental immunity.
Are you in favor of governmental immunity? Thoughts
I agree but…the CPS situation is the law and the law is a national law. Apparently, any mandated reporter is responsible for making sure the CpS 3200 is filed. From my understanding, since everyone who actually did email the principal bc they witnessed the teacher displayed shady behavior, was found liable and fired.
So, don’t let your district tell you to just email the principal and they’ll take care of it, bc if that principal does not call CPS …everyone who emailed her will be held to account. That was the downfall for this school in my district. Not knowing doesn’t count as a defense either. Just be careful
I’m not for guaranteed immunity for any governmental worker.
I think they should just make more protective laws. Right now teachers are just left hanging with little support but a crazy dangerous job.