1. Oldmanofthemountain

    Oldmanofthemountain Active Member

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    Teachers of this forum, how would these potential conflict of interest scenarios be handled?

    Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Oldmanofthemountain, May 9, 2021.

    My apologizes for the lousy title, couldn't think of a better one for this topic. Anyways, here are two questions of mine that I will ask in the form of hypothetical scenarios:

    1.A 23 year old middle school teacher is looking for a new relationship on Tinder. She matches up with a 22 year old man who lives in the her same town as her. After going on a few dates, the pair really hit it off. However, she soon discovers that her potential boyfriend is the older brother of one of her students.

    2.A 31 year old high school teacher is having her own 17 year old brother as one of her students. The school she is employed at is located at a rural town with a very small population. As you might expect, the school has a low budget, a limited amount of staff, and only offers the required courses. She is the only educator in the school one teaching a certain essential course. Thus her brother ending up in her class was unavoidable.

    What would be the official policy for those situations? Would the teacher be technically allowed to carry on with the relationship in situation 1, or are there too many conflicts of interest at play for it to work out? In situation 2, would there be anything done to ensure that nepotism doesn't arise between the teacher and her younger sibling? If so, what such actions would the school take?

    Furthermore, teachers here, have any of you been in similar situations to my scenarios? If so, how did you handle them?
     
  2. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    I'm not a teacher, but my mother was one at my highschool, and neither myself or my sister was allowed to be in any of her classes. Ditto for the other three or four teachers who had children in the building. I imagine it would be different in a very small school district with limited options.

    As for dating the older brother of a student, I don't see why that would be a problem. I mean, in a small town, everyone who lives there is bound to be related to at least one student in the district in some way.

    ETA: now that I think about it, there might have been a thing where my mom was supposed to teach an AP English class but couldn't because we were going to be in it. Or maybe not. I'll have to ask her...

    And now that I'm dipping into my memory banks, I'm almost positive that some of my elementary school teachers had their kids in their class. I'm talking like 2nd and 3rd grade, which would have been 1986/87.
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
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  3. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    That sort of thing is completely unavoidable in a small district. I can think of numerous instances of it right off the top of my head. I mean, if you've got one English teacher, who else is going to teach that kid English? (I'm not a teacher by the way)
     
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  4. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    My aunt had both her daughters in her high school math class at different times. They addressed her as "Ma'am," knew they'd better excel or else, and never got by with excuses of why their homework wasn't done. She was harder on them than any other students because they all knew my cousins' fine grades were going to be attributed to "your mom is the teacher."
     
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  5. Oldmanofthemountain

    Oldmanofthemountain Active Member

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    I imagine that it would be quite difficult for such a student to lie about homework or grades their to parents, considering that they where the ones that gave it to them. On another note, how parent teacher conference would work out, when the teacher is also one of the parents?
     
  6. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    It saves time, to say the least.
     
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  7. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    I seem to remember a couple of big kerfuffles that made the school gossip rounds because a teacher's kid was being (allegedly) poorly treated by another teacher. Or was it that the kid felt entitled and kept name-dropping his mom to try to get special treatment? The stories went both ways (as these things usually do).

    There were also the juicy stories about soap-opera-style linkups and breakups between teachers and staff.

    Not directly related to the subject, but peripherally anyway.
     
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  8. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    I'm not advocating child abuse, but that's a kid who needs to be bitch-slapped as a kid to avoid being beat to death as an adult.
     
  9. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    ... or shooting up a school or something.
     
  10. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    Rules might have changed since I was in high school (1960s) but I had a class taught by the mother of one of my classmates. I don't recall any talk about conflict of interest. If anything, he was held to a higher standard.
     

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