Difficult Decision: When Personal Ethics Battle the Law

Dr. Hardin was the principal at a mid-sized elementary school in a suburban school district. She had been a school administrator for almost 10 years and looked forward to the daily challenges that came with the job. Over the years, she had seen almost everything. She was really feeling confident in her abilities and was relishing in her reputation as a principal who could get achievement results. Her staff had little if any turnover and the parents and community knew her and trusted her.

On one particularly hectic Friday in April, a teacher poked her head into Dr. Hardin’s office during lunch and asked if she could speak to her. Dr. Hardin always welcomed teachers with a standing open-door policy. Mrs. Keller had been a teacher at Vanderbilt Elementary School for the past 25 years and was regarded as one of the best in the business. She was always supportive of any program or project that would promote student achievement. She showed up early and left late almost every single day. She rarely needed administrative intervention in her classroom due to her consistent discipline, engaging lessons, and high expectations. However, Mrs. Keller looked visibly upset on this occasion and Dr. Hardin took notice. Mrs. Keller pulled up a chair and began to tell Dr. Hardin about some recent events in her 3rd grade classroom.

Holly Hunt, a straight “A” student in Mrs. Keller’s class, came up to Mrs. Keller at bus duty on Thursday afternoon and told her that another little girl in her class was insisting on coming home with her Friday after school. Mrs. Keller didn’t think much about it, but asked Holly to continue since she had a few minutes before the next bus arrived. Holly went on to explain that Savannah Wilson had begged her non-stop at recess to come home with her on Friday after school because she didn’t want to go home for the weekend. Savannah was a somewhat timid and disheveled little girl who wore ragged clothing and rarely had her homework done. The one conference Mrs. Keller was able to get with the young girl’s mother proved very unhelpful. Savannah’s mother had merely sat their nodding the entire time but offering no insight as to how Mrs. Keller could improve Savannahs’ academic progress. In all honesty, Mrs. Keller wasn’t sure Savannah’s mother even had any desire to see Savannah improve.

The student information folder indicated that Savannah and her mother moved to the area midway through Savannah’s second grade year when Savannah’s mother had remarried. No biological father or relatives were listed anywhere on the student information sheet. Being new to town, there were not even any emergency contact numbers for neighbors or friends. Savannah’s mother was unemployed and her stepfather worked for a local construction company. The records that had transferred from Savannah’s previous school also shed little light on the quiet little girl. There were scores from the standardized reading placement tests that were given that indicated she was about eight months behind her classmates, but no further information was really available.

As Mrs. Keller listened to Holly’s reenactment of the day’s playground incident, many things were simply not adding up for her. However, when Holly told Mrs. Keller that Savannah’s stepfather liked to “play house” on the weekends with her and that she didn’t want to play, Mrs. Keller’s curiosity was peaked. Mrs. Keller worried about Savannah all night and woke up Friday morning with the same uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Mrs. Keller arrived at school extra early Friday morning and waited outside the school counselor’s office door.

When Ms. Tress arrived to work, Mrs. Keller told her of her conversation with Holly at the bus ramp the previous afternoon. While Ms. Tress could see why Mrs. Keller might be concerned, she also reminded Mrs. Keller that “playing house” could mean a variety of different things. Mrs. Keller asked if Ms. Tress would at least visit with Savannah and try to clear it up. Ms. Tress consented and told Mrs. Keller that she would visit with Savannah first thing in the morning, after the announcements.

Right one cue, Ms. Tress called Savannah down to the counselor’s office and kept her for about an hour. While Savannah never openly made an outcry of abuse, the evidence was mounting. She offered very little insight into situation except for during a brief period of play therapy in Ms. Tress’s office where the dolls she was playing with began to do inappropriate actions towards one another. Again, this could be the result of unsupervised television viewing or a myriad of other things. One thing was for certain, Savannah was more knowledgeable than she should be in the third grade.

Ms. Tress also called Holly Hunt down to her office for a brief visit. In that environment, Holly was able to share far more than she was able to share with Mrs. Keller at bus duty. Holly relayed to Ms. Tress that Savannah was in fact being sexually abused and was able to give a fairly detailed account of what all Savannah had told her. Holly broke down following the confession and her mother was called to come get her and take her home for the rest of the day.

After Holly was excused and dismissed to go home, Ms. Tress immediately called Child Protective Services (CPS) and sat on hold for over an hour prior to filling her report. Mrs. Keller came in on her way to lunch to find out about the morning’s events from Ms. Tress and to find out why Holly had gone home for the day. Ms. Tress told Mrs. Keller of the allegations made by Holly and about Holly’s breakdown in the counselor’s office. She told Mrs. Keller that she had filled a report with CPS and that she felt sure it would be taken care of. Mrs. Keller had worked in the schools for many years and was not a confident as Ms. Tress about the effectiveness or timeliness of CPS. The truth is that they were way under-staffed and the turnover rate in their office was unbelievable. An average investigator only lasted about six months and a case worker was lucky to last three.

After hearing Mrs. Keller’s accounts of the last 24 hours, Dr. Hardin was reminded of what made the principal’s job the most difficult – caring about kids so much it hurt. It was no secret the Dr. Hardin had a huge heart for “her kids”. She was known to take many children to the book fair when she knew they couldn’t afford to go. She secretly adopted several kids from her school so they would have Christmas presents in December. She would even attend sporting events on the weekends to watch her students play. Over her past decade as a principal, she had seen her fair share of hurt children, but it never got any easier. Dr. Hardin told Mrs. Keller to go grab a bite to eat before she had to go to playground duty and that she would check on the status of the report.

After Mrs. Keller left, Dr. Hardin called a case worked that she had previously worked with to see if she could get an investigator to the school immediately. However, the case worker told Dr. Hardin that it was really out of anyone’s control. They would get there as soon as they could, but they had two employees quit that morning. There was simply no way they could go any faster than they already were. They had even called in to a neighboring county for assistance, but there was no one to spare there either. It appeared that Savannah and Dr. Hardin were at the mercy of the system.

As three o’clock began to loom before her, Dr. Hardin’s mind began to race regarding what alternatives she might have to sending Savannah home prior to a CPS investigation. Dr. Hardin called the local police department which yielded little assistance. Savannah was not the one who made the outcry, so there was no direct evidence to affirm the accusations. Comments about “playing house” and some naked dolls were also simply not enough to convince the authorities to become involved. While they could definitely sympathize with Dr. Hardin’s plight, they felt that this was best handled by the local CPS office. By 3:15, Dr. Hardin was out of options and out of time.

What are your legal obligations?

• What does the law say?
• What is your school district policy?
• What will happen if you don’t follow the law?

Under the ethic of critique

• Who benefits from the outcome?
• Are the demands on the school too great?
• If benefit accrues to the school, who in it benefits?

Under the ethic of justice

• Who suffers from the outcome?
• Are demands on the individual too great?
• If benefit accrues to the individual, what happens to the group?

Under the ethic of care

• What happens to relationships?
• Are relational demands being met?
• How does the decision weaken or strengthen relationships?

Under the ethic of discourse

• Who is excluded from the decision?
• Are discourse demands met?
• Is the quality of the discourse changed?
• Is the quality of the decisions changed?

3 Simple steps to get your paper done
Step 1	Step 2	Step 3
Place Order	Down to work	Paper is Ready!
Takes just a few minutes!	Best writer takes the order	Access via your account