Should schools tell the parents what really happened at school ?

Yes, parents should definitley be told what’s going on in their child’s school.
However, in the story you linked I question if all procedures and privacy policies were followed. Did the staff member disclose the bully’s name? Was an appropriate course of action taken, including a formal report if necessary?

Always!

Here is a further article on this incident.

@tedibear39 Thanks for the additional info. I’m curious about why school officials say she was fired.

No, the incidents would have to have a minimum relevance or criticality. Otherwise both teachers and parents would go nuts. And the students would be embarrassed. Kids fall all the time and very often it’s harmless and they think nothing of it. If there’s an injury worth mentioning, sure. If there’s serious bullying going on, sure.

It wasn’t like she was gossiping about the situation in the community and harming the reputation of the school; she told the parents of the child who was harmed about what had happened to her. And since the school is not forthcoming on what they mean by “confidentiality,” I get the feeling that school officials are embarrassed that something this severe was allowed to happen on their watch and were afraid the parents of the girl would ask how it was allowed to happen. The poor dinner lady was a scapegoat.

Honestly, tying a child to a fence and whipping her with a rope? That’s bang out of order, and if that were my child, I’d want to know everything.

This case puts the idea of confidentiality on it’s head. In a case where the child has been harmed, the school should not make it public but legally the parents have to be informed. In the US, the child would have been a crime victim-at the very least battery, and I would have had the juvenile authorities involved if I were the parent. Who was being protected by the xchool’s interpretation of confidentiality? Entering it into an incident book and filing it in a back room reminds me of the scene in Hitchhiker’s Guide when Arthur Dent finds his house is set to be demolished. He doesn’t know anything about it because the records are never published, just filed away in a basement, and the authorities blame him for not knowing this. Hail Brittannia!

Maybe the lunch lady should not have taken it upon herself without filing her own report. Here in the States all school employees are required by law to report any suspected child abuse. However the head teacher should lose her position for not making sure the parents were informed.

As a teacher, I will contact parents if I feel something important has happened to their child. A minor fall does not rate on that scale. However, as teachers, we’re encouraged to contact parents about their children so I’ve never had a problem with that sort of thing.

yes we should kno if my son is in school and something happen likr that i would want a call even if it is a small thing

In this particular case, it sounds like the school officials wanted it hushed up, and the woman who got fired was doing something that the headmaster should have done.

In a just world, the woman would have her job back, and the headmaster would be sacked.

@cwilbur I would hope a private school would pick this woman up & employ her

I would want to know. How can adults see such a thing go on & turn a blind eye?

@cwilbur School officials always want things hushed up, it’s just in this kind of case there are legal consequences. Earlier in my teaching career things were pretty wild at my school. There was wstrong arm robberies, adults were accidently hurt by students, cars were vandalized, keys went missing and classrooms robbed. One year a report came out stating that there was an all-time low in school district crime and violence. Of course we had to see it. Almost none of the incidents were in the report. The excuses were things like the keyed cars were parked on the street not on school property. I had reported a girl who had been surrounded and harrassed by a group of boys but that never became official because I didn’t know the boys and the girl wouldn’t cooperate.

The union pressured teachers to report every incident they saw, demand a copy of each report and when appropriate press charges. In one case a boy shoved me as he was trying to leave an assembly without permission. This kid had several run-ins with teachers so I insisted on a police report for battery. You would not believe the pressure as everyone from the AP to the counselor to the resource (police) officer trying to get me to drop it. It turned out this kid had such a bad record that this was the last straw and he ended up in CYA.

By the end of the year we could see the difference in the school climate. Some of the bad element were gone (several at their own request) everybody else got the message.

Schools have an obligation to inform parents about what has happened to their children at school. At this age, schools are acting in loco parentis and this school failed in its job, probably because they were covering their collective asses. They didn’t want parents to know that no adult was supervising the playground.

Probably the lawyers told the school to hush up, because otherwise they could get sued. Confidentiality? My sweet tattooed ass! This is completely unethical behavior in my book. I wouldn’t want my kids going to that school. No way!