Legal Brief for September, 2013

School Issues - Part 1

With the coming of September students are heading back to school to begin a new year of studies, with the ever present backpacks slung over their shoulders, filled with supplies for the year ahead.  As their children leave the house each morning, most parents will breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that they have done their part for the educational system by getting their child successfully off to school.  However, a parent's role in the system doesn't end there.  There is potential legal liability attached to a parent every time their son or daughter sets foot in their school.  Here is an overview of how that operates.

Section 16 of the School Act provides that:

• "If property of a [school] board is destroyed, damaged, lost or converted by the intentional or negligent act of [a] student, the student and the student's parents are jointly and severally liable to the board in respect of the act of the student ..."

The practical effect of this provision is that if for example your son is horsing around with some friends in the gym and they decide to leave the showers on for a prank, and flooding ensues in the change rooms, causing significant damages which have to be repaired at considerable expense, then section 16 makes the parents legally liable to pay to the school board the amount required to repair the damages.  This is because the student's action would have been considered "intentional" and it "damaged" property of the school.  The "jointly and severally" wording means that both the student and the parents will be liable.  Since most students do not have much money beyond what they need for the next weekend, it means the burden of the repairs will fall solely on the parents.  If there are several students involved in the prank, then all of the students and parents together are jointly and severally liable to the school.

A contrasting situation would be where a student is playing basketball in the gym and in the course of her game throws a ball which sails off the court and breaks a window.  In that case the damage would have arisen during a normal school activity during the regular use of school facilities, and not from the "intention" or "negligence" of the student.  In that case the student and her parents would not have any liability to reimburse the school for the broken window.

Knowing of their potential for liability for their children's actions, this may add greater weight to the common send off from a parent to a student in the morning of "be good at school"!

In next month's Legal Brief we will look at legal aspects of the duty of a school to supervise the safety and well being of students under their care.