School Role in Protecting Students?
Court hearing today for student arrested in fatal stabbing of a classmate during a fight at the school bus stop. What do you think? What is the legal responsibility for schools at a bus stop?
Discussion started by Ryan Gray , on 815 days ago
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Here's some information that may give you some ideas about the issue.
The degree of risk involved and the commitments entities have made regarding supervision are key factors in determining responsibilities for bus stop supervision. A Mississippi school district anticipated the need to assign security guards to a bus stop where sixty students who had been previously expelled for violent behavior or commission of felonies were picked up to travel to an alternative school. (Doe ex rel. Doe v. Wright Security Services, Inc. (950 So. 2d 1076 Miss.App., March 6, 2007.) In the past, fights had broken out at the bus stop which made the need for extra supervision very real. The guards’ responsibilities were spelled out, but a particular guard bent the rules and gave one student permission to use the restroom unescorted. While there, the student was sexually assaulted by another alternative school student known to be a particular troublemaker. He, too, had been allowed to leave the stop unescorted.
The court found that the fact that the security company was hired by the school district committed the company to prevent foreseeable harm at the bus stop. District personnel had trained security company people to address the very circumstances that actually arose. The court found that there was enough evidence of possible breach to allow the case to proceed to trial. I do not know what happened next. I wouldn't be surprised if it settled out of court. Where a school district is expected to recognize that there is a likelihood of danger in the absence of strong supervision measures, the school district will have a duty to add that supervision. So, a big question to be answered in the question Ryan raises is whether the district had knowledge of likely harm, and a duty to prevent it.
Peggy Burns
The degree of risk involved and the commitments entities have made regarding supervision are key factors in determining responsibilities for bus stop supervision. A Mississippi school district anticipated the need to assign security guards to a bus stop where sixty students who had been previously expelled for violent behavior or commission of felonies were picked up to travel to an alternative school. (Doe ex rel. Doe v. Wright Security Services, Inc. (950 So. 2d 1076 Miss.App., March 6, 2007.) In the past, fights had broken out at the bus stop which made the need for extra supervision very real. The guards’ responsibilities were spelled out, but a particular guard bent the rules and gave one student permission to use the restroom unescorted. While there, the student was sexually assaulted by another alternative school student known to be a particular troublemaker. He, too, had been allowed to leave the stop unescorted.
The court found that the fact that the security company was hired by the school district committed the company to prevent foreseeable harm at the bus stop. District personnel had trained security company people to address the very circumstances that actually arose. The court found that there was enough evidence of possible breach to allow the case to proceed to trial. I do not know what happened next. I wouldn't be surprised if it settled out of court. Where a school district is expected to recognize that there is a likelihood of danger in the absence of strong supervision measures, the school district will have a duty to add that supervision. So, a big question to be answered in the question Ryan raises is whether the district had knowledge of likely harm, and a duty to prevent it.
Peggy Burns