What are your legal rights and responsibilities as a teacher? When applying for a teaching position, you do not have to answer questions unrelated to the job. A teacher enjoys job security as long as the teacher's behavior and personal life do not disrupt or interfere with teaching effectiveness. However, academic freedom does not protect teachers who use obscene, irrelevant, inappropriate, or disruptive materials or instruction, and freedom of speech does not protect a teacher who uses malicious, intentionally inaccurate, confidential material, or whose speech hampers teaching performance. Teachers may copy material for classroom use by adhering to three criteria: brevity, spontaneity, and cumulative effect. While information on the Internet enjoys First Amendment protection, teachers may legally choose to limit student access to material that is vulgar or educationally inappropriate.
What legal rights do students enjoy (and do they have legal responsibilities)? Parents and guardians have the right to see their child's educational record, and at 18 years of age, students become responsible for providing permission for others to see it. Title IX prohibits many forms of sexual harassment and sex discrimination, including treatment of students and faculty, financial aid, health care, scholarships, and counseling. Students have constitutionally protected rights to due process before they can be disciplined or suspended from school. As long as students do not disrupt the operation of the school or deny other students the opportunity to learn, they have the right to freedom of speech within the schools. Early "cyberTinker" cases have extended this right to the Internet. Schools can neither promote nor inhibit student prayer in honoring separation of church and state. The legality of a "moment of silence" varies from state to state. The school's in loco parentis responsibility allows it to search school lockers and cars in school parking lots and submit student athletes to random drug testing. Student publications can be censored if they are an integral part of the school curriculum, such as part of a course, or if they are obscene, psychologically damaging, or disruptive. Children with the HIV virus, like others who confront medical challenges, have their student status protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The following suggestions for teachers are derived from court decisions and are intended to serve as a basic guide:
Read school safety rules, regulations and handbooks
Respect student confidentiality in records and forms
Notify parents if curriculum materials might be objectionable
Exercise forethought (due care) by anticipating dangerous situations
Report suspected incidents of child abuse
Know and follow due process when penalizing students
Keep your meetings with students public
Separate your personal and professional life
Avoid offensive, sexual, and off-color comments
Know and follow district policies regarding corporal punishment
Seek medical assistance for student injuries or illness
Avoid touching students
Follow copyright laws
What are today's main approaches to moral education? From detecting and reporting suspected cases of child abuse to helping students make ethical judgments, society expects teachers to provide moral education to students, but rejects the notion of promoting a particular or narrow set of beliefs. Historically, traditional values were imparted in a didactic style. Another approach, called values clarification, promotes values through personal reflection and individual analysis. Character education is a popular approach that promotes a core set of values, including respect, responsibility, citizenship, caring, and fairness. Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan have attempted to map moral stages of development and build curricular materials based on these stages. Comprehensive values education combines both traditional and analytical approaches by directly teaching some values, like honesty and caring, while encouraging students to analyze their own positions on more controversial issues, like the death penalty. What teachers do and say provides a model for students, serving as an "informal" curriculum on ethical behavior.
