Teachers as Babysitters

APlusDallas · January 2006

I assist principals of our private/parochial schools with their HR questions and situations. I have one which has me baffled.

Q. "What should be the guidelines for a teacher or staff member serving as an after-hours or overight babysitter for students in the school?"

Any help you can give will be much appreciated.

APlusDallas

FMDi · January 2006

I know private schools have to follow different guidelines than public schools, but I would check with the licensing group for day care facilities. Something similar might be appropriate. My question is why would a school have an overnight babysitting responsibility?

APlusDallas · January 2006

My question is in regards to school employees babysitting students of the school on their own time.

pork1 · January 2006

APLUSDALLAS: This now reads like we are about to address a FLSA issue. What Facilities are being used for this situation? Who is paying the Babysitter? Who is reaping the benefit the employee or the school system for these overnight sitting opportunities? At first read I thought nothing about this as being difficult to answer, but your 2nd POST gave me the urge to ask the concerns above!

PORK

APlusDallas · January 2006

The basic question here is: "Would/could the school be held liable for any adverse action by one of its employees in a situation where a parent, on a personal basis, requests an employee of their child's school to be a babysitter for their child." The babysitting would occur entirely outside of the school setting and time.

System · January 2006

The logical answer is that the school shouldn't be liable, especially if they had nothing to do with hooking up babysitters and babysittees. But if something horrible happened, you bet the $chool would be sued. Of course, schools risk a lawsuit every minute that they're caring for kids.

I used to get school and day-care ees to babysit, and it's really a win-win situation for the parents, kids, and babysitters. (Actually, that's win-win-win.) To be safe, I'd tell the schools to stay out of the transactions so it's totally between the parents and ees.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

marc · January 2006

A local case - preschool worker was baby sitting for parents of the children he worked with on a daily basis. Turned out he had abused 60+ children. He is in jail, hopefully forever, but the pre-school had to declare bankruptcy to fight off the lawsuits. This was 3-4 years ago and the lawsuits are still working. No word if any were settled out of court.

The pre-school was sued for negligent hiring practices and since they put the EE in a position of trust with the kids and parents, the lawyers targeted the pre-school.

I suppose one could draw some potential parallels to your situation.

Paul in Cannon Beach · January 2006

I might suggest:

XYZ School does not recommend nor take responsibility for arrangements made between teachers and parent's for after hours care. Furthermore, XYZ School strongly recommends that parents carefully and thoroughly investigate the competence and background of anyone they are considering for childcare.

TN HR · January 2006

I would recomend a policy forbidding the practice period. Unfortunately, there is way too much exposure should some horrific event were to take place. Ultimately, Plaintiff's counsel will pin the tail on you and allege negkigent entrustment or something along those lines. Why even bother?

WT · January 2006

Having served on the Board of a private school, I have been involved in some of these discussions. Many teachers at private religious schools do not make nearly the wages of teachers at public schools, thus they may moonlight some. I suspect that is where the baby sitting comes from. The school should not endorse or recommend this practice. It is off duty behavior. If you are dealing with children, you should have a Safety Policy in place now which should make provisions for a backround check of your new hires. If you have done this, you have practiced due diligence. Further, I would advise against any male teacher baby sitting or staying overnight with children. This could be in your policy or transmitted verbally to the male teachers as a part of orientation. We do not want our male teachers to even give a ride to female students (for example to a soccer game). The vast majority of the child molestation complaints are against men and no sensible man wants to put himself in the situation of being accused and presumed guilty until he proves himself innocent. That may not be politically correct, but it would head off close to 100% of possible trouble.

Paul in Cannon Beach · January 2006

I would not recommend a policy that differentiates based on gender. It seems like every week we hear about another female teacher having sex with her 13 or 14 year old student. I don't know if its a rising trend or if its just being reported more.

As to forbidding babysitting altogether, can you put that much restriction on ee's off hours activities?

My 9 year old daughter's after school teacher occassionally babysits for us. She loves our daughter and is awesome with our two kids. She has even had my daughter overnight. I see her as a really positive role model for our daughter, like a really cool big sister. We know her and trust her.

As a parent, I would not understand a policy that forbid that.

TN HR · January 2006

You can absolutely forbid it in the same manner that you might forbid, say, a salesperson from entering into an after-hours business venture with a client. I make this suggestion, of course, under the guise that we're not into touchy-feely, gee-whiz-he's-such-a-good-role-model mentality, but rather one of risk avoidance.

Gene

WT · January 2006

Although the female teachers having relations with young boys make the headlines, it is exactly because that sort of thing is so rare. In numbers, the vast majority of complaints are against males. I would still advise any male teacher against baby sitting for children and especially female children. Complaints against men of inappropriate behavior are easy to make and hard to disprove. Even if found not guilty, a man might find his career ruined. Further, many teens and pre-teens develop crushes on teachers. As long as it all stays in an academic setting, these crushes do no harm. Get outside of the formal setting and many things can happen. The younger and more attractive man is more at risk and has less experience in dealing with such situations. Further, he may, indeed, not be able to resist temptation. If the young lady declares her affection in some fashion or form, then the man must either reject or accept her. Either choice involves substantial risk. No sensible man should be willing to take that risk, and if he were to be willing, I would be unwilling to employ him.

Paul in Cannon Beach · January 2006

WT, I see your point. Something about a policy that differentiates between men and women doesn't sit well with me.

As for a policy, I would "officially" discourage teachers from babysitting but stop short of forbidding it.

TN HR · January 2006

"As for a policy, I would "officially" discourage teachers from babysitting but stop short of forbidding it."

Then it's worthless Paul. Try defending that twisted rationale in court. A second year law student would shred you.

WT · January 2006

Paul, In theory, men and women should be treated exactly the same. I fully understand your issue. In practice, we do not treat men and women the same, although there is a polite fiction that we do so. In a manufacturing facility if a man's legs go bad and he cannot lift anymore, he cannot work. If we hire a woman for that job, we tell her to ask a nearby man to lift any box she cannot handle. If the man complains, he is subject to discipline. Men in the office cannot wear shorts in the summer, but women can wear skirts which are similar in form and function to shorts. Men may have to wear ties and women need not do so. Often, women missing time from work to tend to children for illness or appointments is overlooked, but would not be for men. A man in a utility line crew will switch off with another man on the climbing and most strenuous duties. If his partner is a woman who does not have the upper body strength to work on the crossarm, he will do all the strenuous work. In short, demanding a gender blind approach to the issue of abuse allegations is like pulling out into an intersection when a semi is coming. Perhaps he is running the stop sign. In theory, you have the right of way, but in practice you will get creamed.

Paul in Cannon Beach · January 2006

Well said. It will be interesting to know what AplusDallas ends up doing.

Melanie · January 2006

I work with in HR for an agency that has Head Start Teachers and Teacher Assistants, and we strongly discourage any socialization outside of work time with the parents of the program. Our fear is that they would get too close to the parents and then fail in their duty to report child abuse if that was the case. We've seen it too many times where the employees cross that line and end up failing to report child abuse because they "know the parents" and they wouldn't do what the child is reporting during work time.

Teachers as Babysitters

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