School District to reinforce boundaries on Teacher/Student relationships

The School District is set to make use of recently created DVD to help Teachers to better understand the boundaries that need to be observed between the Student/Teacher relationship.

The continuing education process for teachers is designed to help them be more aware of the professional distance that needs to be observed in the day to day classroom setting and it’s hoped will provide teachers with the necessary feedback to be able to read the situations as they develop in the classroom and identify the best way to deal with them.

The Thursday Daily News provided some background on the issue and the steps the School District is taking to help the district’s teachers along the way.

Teachers to be educated on where they must draw line
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Pages one and three

The issue of teacher-student relationships and the boundaries that exist within them is not a new issue, but one that has been on minds of many people in Prince Rupert during the past year.
It's timely then that the British Columbia College of Teachers has created a new educational video for school districts across B.C. as a teaching tool, encouraging staff to think about student-teacher boundaries.

"The format of having the material presented in a DVD is something I've never seen previously in British Columbia, but it's a way to deal with it in an even more preventative way," said Eric Mercer, School District 52 Superintendent of Schools.

"By recognizing certain behaviours, principals and other staff could assist other teachers who may be in danger of crossing boundaries, and staff will be more aware themselves."

The video contains two dramatized scenarios involving teacher-student interactions that are approaching the grey area of ethical conduct, and during each scenario viewers are encouraged to think about the behavior and at what point the teachers are approaching the “boundary limits.”

“An example would be teachers discussing their own personal life with a student,” said Mercer.

“That, for me, is an alarm. The teacher is no longer treating the relationship in a professional manner, it’s now a personal relationship. Anyone who has taught would recognize this and it’s quite a common occurrence unfortunately.”

Mercer said knowing and learning such boundaries is important for new teachers as well as older staff, and the administrative staff in all of B.C.’s school districts will be ensuring their staff are well aware of the professional distance that needs to be maintained in a classroom setting.

However, there is no coded, prescriptive method to deal with each and every teacher-student interaction, so many times, teachers and other staff members are faced with personal discretion when interacting with students.

“Sometimes teachers don’t read the situation and walk into circumstances they’ve failed to identify,” said Mercer.

“And once the boundary is crossed, there’s really no way to retreat, and it’s appoint that gets some teachers into dire straits. We do encourage teachers to find as many ways to interact with their students as possible and promote their learning, but always within boundaries,” said Mercer.

The BCCT videos are currently being circulated through School District 52 staff, and in addition the BCC T has facilitators available to provide further training for staff on teacher-student boundaries if requested.