Task:
Identify (one page or less) any fears you have about personal liability for injuries that occur or may occur related to your professional responsibilities.
When I taught mathematics for five years, I fortunately did not have any incidents which would cause me to worry about my liability in incidences of student injury. I did, however, wonder how we were expected to monitor both the hallway and our classroom at the same time. I wondered to what extent I would be liable if a fight, for example, were to have occurred in my classroom while I was monitoring the hallway. Where does my duty lie in the 5 minutes between classes? My father teaches at a high school and told me that this very situation was a reality for one of their teachers. the teacher broke up the fight as soon as she saw it but not sooner due to the fact that she was in the hallway, monitoring as she was expected to do. After reading more about liability and talking with fellow teachers, I believe that no "reasonable" person could be expected to monitor both of these areas at the same time.
I was also curious as a teacher what constituted "reasonable force" to prevent or stop student fights. It I accidentally hurt a student in the process of breaking up a fight, was I liable? To what extent can a teacher defend themself in a situation whena student is "out of control?"
I have questions about liability issues with my present job as a mathematics consultant for ISBE. For instance, I have gone to a few schools to help conduct workshops. To what extent am I liable to the students in that building as an "outsider" who merely comes in the school building to perform a duty for the teachers?
Other concerns I have do not pertain to injury. Because of my knowledge of computers and making a home page, I have been charged with the task off maintaining the ISBE assessment home page. I do not detect that the process of putting materials on the web has been given the considerable amount of attention it deserves. For instance, much of the information on our site was outdated and incorrect when I was hired at the agency. Due to the fact that a lot more people will be looking to this site for accurate information, it is imperative that these pages be continually monitored for accuracy. I do not think that there is a policy in place yet to address this. For instance, a colleague was extremely upset when she fielded a call from someone who searched he ISBE site and found a rubric that is no longer in use. The rubric this person found is in no way connected to the pages for which I am in charge, and my colleague asked my guidance as to why the page is still "active." Of course, this assumes that I know about all aspects of the agency, even before my employment. Of course this is a ridiculous assumption, but I am taking steps to inform people who to contact if a situation like this arises.