Children Being Injured in Schools!

Statistics show that more than fourteen million of child injuries occur EVERY year throughout the country. Of these injuries, twenty-five percent occur in our around a SCHOOL property. School is supposed to be a safe place to send our children for learning, but it abundantly proving itself to be a danger zone. Most parents agree, their number one goal when sending their child to school is to provide them the opportunity to learn in a safe and secure environment.

If your child is injured at school, or during a school-related activity, you must ask yourself a few questions.

1. Was the occurrence intentional or negligent? This question is significant for a few reasons. Intentional torts include acts such as bullying and harm inflicted on someone by an adult.

2. While at school, schools provide for almost all the child’s needs and safety. If a school fails to follow accepted standards of care in providing those services to a child and they are INJURED because of that failure, then the school is deemed negligent. Examples of negligence include:

School bus accidents-

• Negligence of a school employee/ bus driver
• Improper training of the driver of the school district
• A poorly designed bus or malfunctioning vehicle equipment
• Negligence of the other driver involved in the collision

Playground Injuries-

• Lack of adequate supervision by a teacher
• Defective playground equipment
• A fall on ice or snow, resulting from the school’s failure to clear sidewalks
• Defective sports equipment, even if provided by an outside vendor or manufacturer

Legal backdrop:

When someone enters your property, they have a reasonable expectation of not getting injured. Under this theory of “premises liability,” occupiers and owners of land (including schools) are legally required to keep premises safe for those who are legally allowed to be there. In the case of schools, as they are predictably occupied by children, the law necessitates a greater degree of care and responsibility to be taken in situations where these students are present.