Ascot School District Case

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What are Superintendant Roeske’s problems? Are some of the problems more urgent than others?

The case described in Ascot School District by Richard Fossey and Katherine Merseth (Merseth 266-274) is devoted to a complicated situation that the Superintendant James Roeske has to deal with: he and a group of his colleagues have to make a decision on the case of a teacher who had sexual contact with three female students. Roeske et al have to choose between several options, each of which has its flaws, which creates the contradictoriness of this case. The key question that Roeske faces is whether the case should be reported to the Professional Teaching Practices Commission (PTPC). The first aspect of the contradictoriness is reputation of the school and of the district: if the case is disclosed, it will awake strong resonance in the community; on the other hand, if the case is not reported and way it has been “settled” becomes “public knowledge (274), it will be also met with the community’s severe critique. The second aspect is keeping confidentiality: three young women involved in the case requested to leave the information confidential, which also gives birth to certain contradictoriness and complicates decision-making. The third aspect is the material cost of solving the case; however, comparing to the first two aspects, this one seems to be of minor importance.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that the confidentiality of the information is actually not under the complete control of Roeske and thus is not the matter of his choice. The situation has become known a big circle of people, and there is no guarantee that the information does not leak.

Fortunately, Roeske avoided two other possible problems that could emerge in this case. One of these problems is the problem with the law; however, neither the actions of the teacher Milton Botsford contained the elements of breaking law, nor did Roeske violate law with the settlement of the case. The second possible problem could be connected with Botsford: in case the teacher did not access the proposed settlement, solving the case would be quite problematic.

What role does the teachers’ association play in this case? How are the actions of the central administrators influenced by the contract and the teachers’ association?

The case of Milton Botsford is to great extent controversial, as despite the evident violation of a teacher’s ethics code, the teacher’s actions turn out to be legal from the perspective of law. Thus, it is rather difficult to give them classification and ground the actions that the Superintendant et al should take against them. The observation of the possible sources of this classification revealed that there is no ground to claim that Botsford’s actions violated any code or statute.

In the Ascot school district, teachers are represented by the Ascot Education Association (AEA) (Merseth 272). The organization has a collective bargaining agreement with the school district that inter alia outlines the cases that can become the ground for a teacher’s dismissal, which are: 1) “incompetence”, 2) “immorality”, 3) “insubordination” (ibid.). At first, it may seem that Botsford’s actions can be classified according to any of these points; however, the further observation demonstrated that they do not fall under any of them (ibid.). Beyond these three reasons, the agreement also does not classify the teacher’s actions and even does not outline the ethical framework for evaluation of teachers’ actions and behavior.

Thus, the content of the agreement provided by the teachers’ association contributed to the contradictoriness of the discussed situation. Botsford’s actions could not be classified either as “immorality” or as “incompetence”, which to great extend predetermined the settlement of the case: Roeske et al could neither dismiss Botsford nor file a suit against him.

How would you respond to Jack Hurst’s request that the information about his daughter be kept confidential?

During the period of collection of information that concerns the case of Milton Botsford, all three women requested that the information they provided to the observers is to remain confidential, which was to great extent caused by their aspiration to save their reputation and the reputation of the teacher. Jack Hurst, the father of one of the women, also asked to keep the information confidential. The question arises: is meeting the women’s request feasible and reasonable?

The question of confidentiality in education remains burning and is often discussed in courts. In some cases, a plaintiff insists on breaking confidentiality and providing him/her with confidential information; in other cases, a plaintiff insists on his/her right to keep certain information confidential. However, beyond court, administrators who work in the field of education also have to deal with the cases concerning confidentiality; Botsford’s case is the example of such situation.

To make a decision about keeping confidentiality, it is necessary to consider the following aspects:

Objective necessity for disclosure of the confidential information;
An administrator’s right to fulfill such disclosure;
The interests of persons whom the confidential information concerns.

As well as the interests of any other persons who may be affected by disclosure of information or, backwards, keeping it confidential. Let us analyze Botsford’s case from this perspective.

On the one hand, Roeske has the right to disclose the information about the case, as he is responsible for the wellbeing of students, and the case contains potential threat for them. On the other hand, there was no objective necessity to disclose the information, as the decision to keep it confidential was legal and did not create obstacles to settling the case. Finally, the interest of three women was to keep the information confidential. Thus, being in the position of an administrator, I would promise to Jack Hurst and the participants of the case to keep the information confidential.

Works Cited

Merseth, Katherine K. Cases in Educational Administration. USA: Allyn & Bacon, 1997. Print.

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Ascot School District Case

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