Lesson 8 - Sarah Holgado

This week we discussed child abuse and how to properly report it. I learned that you can only report first-hand knowledge. I found it interesting that it is actually encouraged to take pictures of any visible abuse you may see. The first thing you should do when you suspect abuse is to bring it to the attention of the school psychologist and then if appropriate, inform the principal. After the psychologist and principal are informed, then the person who saw the abuse must make the official report to a state agency, such as the policy department or Child Protective Services. One thing that I didn't know is that child reporting laws rule over FERPA laws (i.e. privacy laws). That's an important thing that all teachers should understand because I'm sure teachers witness abuse very frequently but are afraid to report it. On Wednesday, we were given a case study to analyze and we discussed what we would do in that scenario. It was a good experience to discuss with my team members how we would address the specifics of the situation.