The duty to supervise does not go away

 Teachers need to take charge

 

A child in a Baltimore City public school was hit by a flying chair.  The chair was set on its flight by another student.  Both the injured child and the pilot of the flying chair agreed there was no intent to harm the victim.

The child’s parents agreed there was no intent but their child was still injured and needed the attention of the school nurse as well as a local Urgent Care.  

The victim’s parents sued the school district because the teacher failed to protect their child from harm.  The lower court agreed with the school district that the teacher had followed protocol by getting the other children out of the classroom and that there was no intent to do harm.  

However, the parents appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.  The parents argued that the Board of Education through its agent the teacher, had a duty to exercise care for the students.  They further argued that the teacher had retreated from the classroom rather than staying behind to make sure all of the children were out of the room before she left the room.  The Court agreed with the parents saying the Board has a duty to protect students and that is conferred on a teacher by the Board.

Many courts have held that a teacher is not an insurer of student safety and have held teachers to a standard of reasonable care exercised by a person of ordinary prudence.  However, schools do have a duty to provide supervision of students and are liable for foreseeable injury when the teacher fails to provide that supervision.  In this case, the parents argued that when the student started throwing things there was a foreseeable danger of harm to the other students and that the teacher had a responsibility to protect all of the students by making sure all were removed from the classroom.  

The Court of Special Appeals returned the case to the lower court to determine if better supervision, the crux of the case, could have prevented the injury.   If better supervision could not have prevented the injury then lack of supervision, which is a school responsibility, could not be found to be the cause of the injury.

One of the key issues coming out of this case is the need and importance of supervision by school staff regardless of the circumstances- teachers need to be in charge.