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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In general, I think it has been very good for our school community to have faculty and staff children in the classrooms. I do think that it helps to bring the community together and to open up lines of communication.

I am a bit annoyed, though, about one situation. There is one teacher whose daughter clearly has behavioral problems.  As far as I can tell, teachers simply tolerate it. The mother is not a class lead teacher, but runs one of the enrichment programs and is a specialist. So, she sees and has relationships all across the school. Perhaps this results in most of the faculty having a professional relationship with her, and maybe not wanting to rock the boat. While it is not the same issue at all, I am perhaps more frustrated by this because the teacher mom runs a program that is widely regarded by parents as the worst program at the school. She is polite, has a dignified demeanor, and a put together look. Unfortunately, though, she seems to be wholly incompetent at her job. I do not say this lightly as several parents I know well have Masters or PhD level degrees and this teacher's area of work, and all agree that she is woefully behind on best practices for teaching, and on the actual substance.  It is hard to say whether people are more hesitant to raise this issue because her daughter is in classes with the rest of our kids.  We all have to pick our battles, and who wants to pick a battle with a woman who is the parent of a child in our kids class, especially when the child is already more difficult than most?

What I find interesting is that people don't seem to mind that teachers, at least specialist, are allowed to teach their own children in the classroom. But, if a parent wants to have a teacher tutor their child, or give guitar or violin lessons, that is not allowed while the student is one of thecteacher's students.  I understand the principles involved.  But isn't the potential bias a child parent would have much greater than that of a tutor? Isn't there more of a danger of teachers kids being favored because other teachers don't want to engage in conflict with their peer teachers?

Again, overall I think it's a great thing that faculty and staff kids are at the school. And I would not change our policies of supporting that. I think we should be more aware, though, of possible Ramifications, and that the school, and parents, need to in sure that nobody, whether a faculty or staff kid, or a violin student, is treated preferentially.[/quote]

Umm.  You don't understand the principles involved.  This issue is one of vulnerability to child sexual abuse, not "bias" toward a student.  Good schools have policies that forbid teachers or other school staff tutoring or babysitting or performing any other services for the student or family not because of issues of bias, but because these types of relationships are often used by pedophiles to "groom" the student (and the family) for sexual abuse.  No school worth its salt should allow this kind of faculty or staff interaction with families outside the school environment -- not only because a child can end up being abused, but also because if that happens there is a huge potential legal liability for the school.

If a parent teaches his/her own child, the abuse issue isn't there, because we assume that a parent doesn't abuse their own child, for the most part.  Even when a parent does have an abusive relationship with their own child, the parent already has access to the child and presumably would not abuse their own child in the school environment. [/quote]

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