Department of Education Responsible for Student Death

In December 2006 an 8 year old student drowned on a school fun day.

The NSW coroner recently found the NSW Department of Education and a swimming pool in the Blue Mountains were directly responsible for the student death.

The coroner’s findings should remind us of our responsibility to care for children. The standard of care teachers and therefore schools must give our children has to be very high. The law prescribes sending  our children to school where they are obviously in the care of others – we have no choice. Parents therefore need to feel confident with the processes and procedures implemented by the schools their children attend. Schools must keep our children safe from harm. If proper processes and procedures are not implemented and  someone is injured or killed the school will be held responsible.

The coroner pointed out that if the school and swimming pool had followed their own policies and procedures the drowning would not have occurred. The student death was avoidable.

This sad case should serve to highlight the importance of following procedures. The school in question failed to conduct an appropriate risk assessment for the fun day. There were also problems with the consent form.

Consent forms must contain detailed information about excursions. I pointed out problems with parents giving consent for excursions in an earlier post. Further, schools must conduct appropriate risk assessment for all excursions. Risk assessments are obviously more important when the activity has an inherent and acknowledged degree of risk – like visits to swimming pools.

The coroner made some recommendations. One of the recommendations was to establish a database for recording details of a child’s swimming ability. Another was that all primary school aged children be given colour coded wrist bands, denoting their swimming ability, to wear on such excursions.

The coroner acknowledged the costs, in both time and money, associated with establishing a database, but

No time or money can be compared to the life of a young child

Make sure the school your child[ren] attend undertake appropriate risk management assessments before you sign the consent form. Ask to see the documentation if it is not included with the form. In particular, in South Australia, ask to see the ‘Application to Conduct an Excursion‘ because the document provides a whole range of important information. Mind you, I have never seen this form before!

Parents don’t want to water down their own responsibility for the well-being of their children. I am sure we are all sick of seeing people trying to blame others for accidents. But, in cases like the tragic drowning  of the student in NSW, the school was found to be partially responsible for the death. That is, the death was, like I said earlier, avoidable.

It is our duty as parents to proctect our children – and when they are in the care of others, for example when they are at school or on school excursions making sure procedures and guidelings are carefully followed is part of our role.

Australian Central Community Lottery

It’s great to see business supporting the non-profit sector. The Australian Central Community Lottery continues to provide significant levels of funds for schools, clubs and so on. Have a look here for more information about how the lottery works.

It is hardly surprising that many non-profit organisations, including schools, have jumped on the bandwagon. After all, the lottery offers funds for schools with little risk attached. All the school has to do is keep accurate records of ticket sales, mostly for statutory reasons – the conduct of lotteries is indeed highly regulated in Australia.

I was, in my previous post, concerned that schools don’t seem to comply with the rules and regulation about lotteries. That type of non-complying behaviour can only tarnish the image schools present to children, parents and the wider-community.

‘Plugger’, responded to my previous post by saying:

Too true. The thing I hate the most is when the bastards send lottery tickets home for us to sell WITHOUT asking us first

What an apt comment. Recently, the school my child attends sent home lottery tickets issued by the Australian Central Community Lottery. Sending home unsolicited lottery tickets for sale seems to be in breach of the regulations about the conduct of lotteries. The rules about the conduct of Major Lotteries can be found in Section 20 of the Lottery and Gaming Regulations. Subsection (o) spells out the state of the law in crystal clear language:

a ticket in the lottery must not be given or posted to a person for sale to or by that person without his or her prior consent

It was in consideration of ‘Plugger’s’ comment and my reading of the regulations about lotteries that prompted me to speak with other parents about schools sending home lottery tickets for sale without asking first. Well, what a surprise. Parents were mostly disgruntled by the apparently wide-spread practice with one claiming it was a type of bullying. Using the term ‘bullying‘ might be a little extreme but its use nonetheless indicates something about how many parents perceive schools. That is, they feel intimidated by the school and feel obliged to purchase the tickets even though they don’t really want to. You don’t have to be too bright to work out that’s the precise reason for the prohibition on sending home lottery tickets without first obtaining the consent of parents.

It is unacceptable to create a situation where people feel obligated when, in reality, no obligation exists

On the other hand, some parents have no problem at all with the practice and put forward the view that schools need the funds and lotteries are a good fundraising mechanism. In this view, parents should willingly contribute by purchasing tickets without worrying about the process. That is, the great outcome – funds for the school – is the sole issue at stake.

I can see the merits in both points of view. However, all fundraising activities should comply with the law. I am sure Australian Central would be very unhappy with any non-profit entities that don’t carefully follow the rules. Not only does it make the non-profit organisation look shoddy, it also reflects poorly on Australian Central.

The non-profit sector need funds. Business can play an important role, as indeed the Australia Central Lottery example demonstrates. However, the enthusiasm of fundraisers does not stand alone. Yes, we are all grateful for the efforts of the fundraising groups within our schools – but their activities must comply with the law. If they don’t it can only jeopardise wonderful innovative arrangements like the Australian Central Community Lottery.

Managing Legal Risks: Fund-raising

State funded schools in Australia seem to be under some financial pressure. Although the state provides reasonable levels of financial support, fund-raising has become an increasingly important activity for many schools. Parents often play a critical role because they are willing to give their time for free. It is usually parents who organise and drive many of the fund-raising activities undertaken by schools. I am sure school management are grateful because an extra few thousand dollars flowing into school coffers can be useful. Involving parents probably helps build a sense of community as well. At least among the parents who are involved.

It is important, of course, that all fund-raising activities comply with the law. The reasons for compliance are obvious. It avoids the imposition of sanctions. We don’t, after all, want the efforts of parents to be wasted. Second, non-compliance sets a bad example for our children and the community-at-large.

Raffles and lotteries are an effective and commonly used method of raising funds. The thing is, lotteries are highly regulated. That means there are plenty of legal requirements that schools MUST meet. The government department that administer South Australian schools naturally require schools comply with law concerning the conduct of lotteries. It is easy to say that. But do schools know what they should do when running a lottery? Perhaps not.

I was at the local pub the other day when one of the regulars asked me if I wanted to buy a couple of raffle tickets. I often support the pub’s social club so agreed. But this time it wasn’t the social club selling the tickets. Instead, they were from a school.

Like I said before, schools have a responsibility to comply with law – especially in view of the important role they play in the community. So imagine my surprise to see the tickets offered me included very little information.

The tickets offered did not tell me which school they are from. Indeed, the only information given was attached to the front of the book of tickets – and that information was sadly lacking. Full detail of the requirements for running a range of different types of lotteries are contained in the Lottery and Gaming Regulations. I assume the lottery is a ‘minor’ one. That means the retail value of prizes is less than $2000. If so, no license is required. Nonetheless, the lottery must still comply with the regulations.

In particular, Section 19 spells out what’s important when conducting Minor Lotteries. For example:

each ticket and the butt of each ticket must have the name of the association conducting the lottery and the date, place and time for the drawing of the lottery clearly printed on it.

You will see below that in this case there was no detail at all included on the tickets.

Fund-raising committees and schools have a responsibility to be cognizant with the rules and regulations about the conduct of raffles and lotteries. Otherwise the image they present to parents, students and the community is suspect. Schools expect decent levels of behaviour from students – we should demand the same from schools.

Perhaps schools, or someone, should develop training programs and checklists to increase the chance that all of their activities comply with the law. It seems important, to me.

School Excursions, Accountability and ‘Uninformed’ Consent

I’ve recently been reading a few online forums that include posts about children beginning or returning to school. It is quite clear that the costs of education are foremost in parents’ minds at this time of the year. No-one is saying that all the costs imposed by schools are unreasonable. However, there seems to be some disquiet about the costs of school excursions in particular. The problem isn’t the fact that excursions cost money but rather how and when parents are informed about the costs.

Is it unreasonable of me to request an explaination from the school as to what the cost of an excursion covers? … I’ve just received a notice for $50 to be paid within a week for a sports excursion for two sons…I want the school to provide a list of what they want to me pay for at the beginning of each year so I can budget for it… I’m sick of always having to fork out.
http://www.emailcash.com.au/benefits.asp?go=forum&tp=665089&ca=9

The above comment indicates the problem isn’t cost alone. Details about excursion activities are often lacking. What does ’sports excursion’, for example, entail? The mind boggles. The formal instructions to schools, at least in South Australia, require detailed information about activities being given parents. There is a good reason for this:

If parents are not provided with adequate information about the nature of the activities undertaken on excursions, the consent they give the school is uninformed and therefore questionable.

So, if the lack of information given parents results in the consent they give being ‘uninformed’ thereby potentially placing schools in a precarious legal position, we MUST wonder why this happens. Is it simply substandard work by schools? If so, why? Are schools under-resourced to such an extent they are unable to fulfil their legal and moral obligations to students and parents?

Perhaps parents can help schools complete the necessary ‘paperwork’ so our school personnel do not find themselves in a legal wrangle. I am sure the government department responsible for administering schools would quickly blame the school if an unfortunate event occurred AND the school hadn’t carefully followed the prescribed procedures.

Schools seem to be trying to do the right thing. But parents also have a responsibility for standards. And I don’t just mean educational standards. There are also moral and legal standards. To better protect our children we MUST hold schools accountable for the information they give us. Schools should provide information about the costs and detail of all excursions up-front. Otherwise we cannot give genuine consent.

School Chaplains or Pastoral Workers

The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, announced the National School Chaplaincy Programme during October 2006. As we near the end of 2007, the programme is being successfully rolled out. The programme provides Federal funding for school communities to assist meet the cost of employing a school chaplain. The Federal Australian government will provide $55Million over three years. Schools can receive funding of up to $20,000. The Department of Education, Science and Training administer the scheme. Details are available here.

The programme aims to:

assist school communities…support the spiritual wellbeing of their students, including strengthening values, provide greater pastoral care and enhance engagement with the broader community.

This is clearly a counsellors role. There is nothing wrong with that. The chaplains will also provide:

general religious and personal advice, comfort and support to all students and staff, regardless of their religious denomination, irrespective of their religious beliefs.

Perhaps that is going a little too far. Or perhaps not, because student participation is voluntary (I think in the context of primary schools that means it is up to parents to decide).

School communities also decide what religion the chaplain will be from. That doesn’t mean denominations of particular religions but rather the ‘religion at large’. For example, most of the positions advertised ask for the person to be “Christian”. This raises interesting questions given the diversity of “Christian” beliefs and practices. Even some “Christians” might object to the appointment of a chaplain with connections to any particular denomination. Would, for example, Catholics be happy if the chaplain was a Bush Baptist.

The idea chaplains are useful in schools is not new. Private schools are long-time users of school chaplains. Dr Judy Salecich’s PhD thesis examined the need for school Chaplains. She comments that:

Chaplaincy is about community development — local people identifying the needs of young people and families in their community and mobilizing community resources to meet these needs.

Dr Salecich seems to onto something here when she says it is about community development. Salecich believes:

Modern society suffers from a lack of God-consciousness and chaplaincy is one way in which communities are trying to redress that, to bring a reality of God closer to young people. A chaplain does this by building relationships with people and modelling his or her Christian faith in the school context

I am not sure that I want ‘God-concisenesses’ raising for my children. I have no problem with the ‘counselling’ role chaplains might play – as long as participation by students is voluntary AND the chaplain has recognised professional qualifications. But religion and State were separated for very good reasons long ago.

We already know that most school chaplains spend most of their time in a pastoral role rather than teaching religious beliefs.

Despite the Federal scheme being called the National School Chaplaincy Programme, there is some doubt that these people are chaplains. The word ‘chaplain’ implies at least some formal training. In South Australia, the agreement between the Department of Education & Children’s Services and the Schools Ministry Group disallows the use of the word ‘chaplain’ and instead mandates using ‘Christian Pastoral Support Worker’ (CPSW). Although this smacks a little of double-speak, the choice of terms is all about the implications of using the word ‘chaplain’. Community understanding is that a ‘chaplain’ has the requisite formal training and qualifications to fulfil the role. CPSWs are perhaps not formally trained or might not have formal qualifications.

I return again to the idea that student participation is voluntary. I think this is the key to the issue at stake. I would like to see professionally qualified counsellors in schools rather than lay-people. That is not to say some lay-people aren’t good counsellors – I am sure many are. I would prefer to take my child to a professional counsellor outside of the school environment, should the need arise. And my choice wouldn’t be based on any religious affiliation.

Let’s keep religion out of our State schools.