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Communications » School Duty to Report

School Duty to Report

WHAT MUST BE REPORTED
 
All non-accidental injuries, abuse, child abuse, neglect, and sexual offenses must be reported to law enforcement. This means that if a child hits another child on campus and the child who was hit was hurt, the teacher must report this to law enforcement. This also means that if your child comes to school with an injury that isn’t explained as an accident, that the police or child protective services must be informed. The schools are not supposed to investigate the claims of abuse—either the police department or child protective services will do that.
LETTER TO PARENTS
 
Dear Parents and Guardians:
 
The Arizona legislature has enacted several laws that may affect your child and you, so we want to provide you with a quick look at some of these laws to help you understand what the school is doing differently this year.
 
1. Bullying. Schools must investigate all reports of bullying. If a student is found to be bullying another student by physically hurting them; by emotional bullying through name-calling, teasing, social exclusion; or by cyber-bullying by harassing them over the internet or text-messages, the student doing the bullying will be disciplined. If you are worried that your child is being bullied, contact the school and we can provide you with more information. You can also go to https://www.stopbullying.gov/ to find out more about the problem and how to deal with it. Teachers can no longer just handle the matter in their own classrooms, but must also report it to administration. If the child who has been bullied has been physically injured, the teacher will also need to report the injury to law enforcement. Either parents or children can report bullying.
 
2. Hazing. Like bullying, hazing can involve physical injury, threat of physical injury or degrading another student. It is done as part of being a member of a club or an athletic team. It is not a defense that the child being hazed agreed to the hazing. Again, just like with bullying, a teacher cannot handle the matter informally. It must be reported to administration and, again, if there is any physical injury or any sexual abuse as part of the hazing, it will also need to be reported to law enforcement.
 
3. Duty to Report. All non-accidental injuries, abuse, child abuse, neglect, and sexual offenses must be reported to law enforcement. This means that if a child hits another child on campus and the child who was hit was hurt, the teacher must report this to law enforcement. This also means that if your child comes to school with an injury that isn’t explained as an accident, that the police or child protective services must be informed. The schools are not supposed to investigate the claims of abuse—either the police department or child protective services will do that.
 
Although there may be more reports initially, we hope that once the children understand that bullying, hazing, or injuring others are not acceptable at school, the number of reports will be reduced. We want to work with you to provide safe schools for all our students. Please contact us if your child reports any concerns at home.
 
Sincerely,
Crane Schools Administration