Case Study #3

Case Study #3
You are a high school teacher in your first year of teaching. You have noticed that one of your students appears to have developed a crush on you. Until today, you viewed the student’s crush as endearing and your student as harmless. You are sitting at your desk in your classroom after school, and no one else is in the room. Your student comes into your classroom and begins acting evocative towards you and makes suggestive comments.

What should you do about this situation?

What are your legal and ethical responsibilities?

This would be an extremely uncomfortable, yet very serious situation for any teacher to be in and requires that careful attention be paid to how it is handled. Dealing with a scenario such as this may result in severe legal implications, and it important that it be taken care of with the utmost respect for both legal and ethical guidelines. I would first make an excuse to leave the classroom and find another faculty member to return to the classroom with me, as it is from a legal standpoint, not a smart idea to be alone with a student without another adult present. The student would likely stop any advancements that they were making due to the presence of the other staff member, but that may not prevent this incident from occurring at a later time. I would record the incident in writing to make sure that it is properly documented. I would then discuss the situation with the school principal and any additional administrative personnel necessary and allow them to assist me in devising a future course of action to avoid any possible complications that might arise from this incident or any incident that may result.