Students can confide in school staff
I am writing in response to the March 25, article titled “District clarifies boundaries between students, staff.” We appreciate the work done by the Camas-Washougal Post-Record to keep the community informed of work being done in the school district. The Washougal School District has been engaged in a major update of every school board policy, bringing all 298 of them into compliance with new laws, legal guidance, and renumbering them to match those in use in other districts. We are working with the Washington State School Director’s Association to review all policies, and our Board of Directors is adopting policies as recommended by WSSDA.
The Post-Record article this week about policy 5253 regarding appropriate staff/student boundaries indicates that it is unacceptable to allow a student to confide any sort of personal struggle to a staff member. This is not what is found in the policy.
The policy states that staff may hear concerns such as family problems and/or relationships confided by a student who initiates the communication with a staff member. It goes on to state that the staff member is expected to communicate with a counselor or member of the counseling staff to seek help for the student with the personal issues that are going on.
As superintendent, it is extremely important to me that our students know that they can bring their problems to any staff member they trust and depend on, and that the staff member knows what they need to do to help the student get the help and support that they need.
This same policy has been adopted by several of our neighboring school districts, including Camas, Evergreen and Vancouver. It is intended to balance the need for staff and students to work in a caring and supportive environment, and to still have clear rules about what constitutes a boundary invasion. Providing these clear rules help teachers maintain healthy, trusting relationships with students in ways that support the needs of students, but do not jeopardize the teacher’s reputation by creating the appearance of impropriety.