This article provides an overview of legal issues and problems salient to school counselors who provide direct services to students or indirect services through consultation. Among legal issues addressed are privacy, confidentiality, and privilege—conceptually distinct topics that in practice often overlap. Also covered are legal duties pertaining to handling student records, conducting research projects, reporting child abuse, and testing and placing students. Among the legal liabilities discussed are those arising from contract, tort, and criminal law and from violations of federal constitutional and statutory rights.

No abstract

No abstract

An analysis of a 4-year sample of reported cases dealing with the actual or alleged sexual abuse of students by teachers, administrators, and other school employees shows that a wide variety of legal issues tended to appear in the various decisions. A majority of the claims in the 5I cases coalesced in the areas of tort law, criminal law, and constitutional law, with a substantial number of claims arising in the areas of teacher dismissal and insurance law. Apart from policy concerns related to individual and/or school district liability under Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, among the most important public policy considerations were those derived from issues surrounding state freedom of information and child abuse reporting statutes. The study also compared suggestive case-based incidence data with survey and study data from other contexts, concluding that enlightened educational policy will best be effected when more is known about the incidence, causes, and outcomes of school-based abuse. All types of social science research, including legal research, are necessary to better insure that the type of abuse documented in this study is prevented

No abstract