Educators Duty to Protect from Harm

The law recognizes the existence of a special relationship between educators and students which imposes upon educators a duty to protect students in their custody from harm. School violence has created serious questions about the authority of teachers to use force in protecting students from violence and at the same time observe prohibitions against the use of physical force by teachers against students set forth in state statutes and administrative codes. Faced with a choice of using force to terminate violent encounters between students or facing civil liability for failing to protect students from violent acts by others, educators must decide whether to risk their jobs providing protection from harm, or idly watch as a student in their charge is victimized by violence. Some jurisdictions have now adopted corporal punishment statutes allowing educators to apply physical force to maintain order; other jurisdictions ban all reliance upon physical force by educators. This seminar will present both sides of the argument as well as current legal interpretations regarding the use of force in different jurisdictions.

The goal of this seminar is to identify the role of educators, consistent with both their legal duty to protect students and the prohibitions against their use of force, to develop appropriate responses to the threat of and the use of violence. Typical state statutes and local rules on responding to violence in school by educators will be presented in light of legal obligations and penalties for failing to protect students from violence. Various practices with regard to the use of force by educators against students and reactions to them in the jurisdictions in which they are applied are discussed. The goal of the training is to present a framework into which educators can suggest alternatives to the use of force when possible and provide justifications for circumstances in which force appears to be the only available remedy in fulfilling the educator’s obligation to protect.