Hello,
My wife is an educator and confiscated a cell phone from one of her students because he was using it during a district mandated exam. This was the procedure as stipulated in her written Plan for Success, which was approved by the assistant principal and signed by the student.
To make a long story short, the phone was confiscated with approximately 20 minutes left in class. About 2 minutes before the end of class, my wife observed another student holding the phone. She told the student to put the phone down and asked the owner to retrieve it. The other student who was holding the phone approached my wife to request help with her grades and when the owner of the phone arrived in front of class, the phone was missing. An incident report was filed.
It is important to note that during the entire class, my wife was clearly acting within the course and scope of her employment (i.e. she was authorized to confiscate the phone and was teaching/observing the students the entire time).
The staff at the school, including the security personnel are nearly all in agreement that she is responsible and should reimburse the student for the cost of the phone - between $200 to $550 depending on who the student is bragging to.
Having a background in Risk Managment and being directly involved with insurance policies, liability coverage, etc. my initial thought is that the school district should cover this loss. My Google-fu indicates that, because AZ receives federal funds, the Teacher Liability Protection Act would apply. In other words, I feel the district should cover the loss because it occurred while the teacher was performing her duties and she didn't commit a criminal act.
Does anyone know... in general... if situations such as this would be normally covered by a school district? In this case, the potential loss is small so the district is almost certainly self-insured for this amount (not covered under purchased excess liability insurance due to the amount).
Thanks in advance for ANY help!
My wife is an educator and confiscated a cell phone from one of her students because he was using it during a district mandated exam. This was the procedure as stipulated in her written Plan for Success, which was approved by the assistant principal and signed by the student.
To make a long story short, the phone was confiscated with approximately 20 minutes left in class. About 2 minutes before the end of class, my wife observed another student holding the phone. She told the student to put the phone down and asked the owner to retrieve it. The other student who was holding the phone approached my wife to request help with her grades and when the owner of the phone arrived in front of class, the phone was missing. An incident report was filed.
It is important to note that during the entire class, my wife was clearly acting within the course and scope of her employment (i.e. she was authorized to confiscate the phone and was teaching/observing the students the entire time).
The staff at the school, including the security personnel are nearly all in agreement that she is responsible and should reimburse the student for the cost of the phone - between $200 to $550 depending on who the student is bragging to.
Having a background in Risk Managment and being directly involved with insurance policies, liability coverage, etc. my initial thought is that the school district should cover this loss. My Google-fu indicates that, because AZ receives federal funds, the Teacher Liability Protection Act would apply. In other words, I feel the district should cover the loss because it occurred while the teacher was performing her duties and she didn't commit a criminal act.
Does anyone know... in general... if situations such as this would be normally covered by a school district? In this case, the potential loss is small so the district is almost certainly self-insured for this amount (not covered under purchased excess liability insurance due to the amount).
Thanks in advance for ANY help!
