DPS Sickout, CPS, and "If You See Something, Say Something"

Teachers are mandatory reporters. That means that when they receive their teaching certificate, it mandates that if they see signs of child abuse, they must start the chain to notify child protective services.

Essentially, every day at work, DPS teachers are staring down conditions that are tantamount to child abuse. Unsafe drinking water. Lack of sanitation. Inedible food. Falling ceiling tiles. No heat on cold winter days.

Here's the thing about mandatory reporting. Teachers aren't required to mention something to someone and then go about their business. They're required to make sure the report goes through and an investigation is properly handled. They don't do the investigation - that's the job of the social workers and other staff at child protective services. They don't remove the children from the situation. But they take action.

In this case, the investigation was mishandled, or didn't happen. Previous emergency financial managers knew about these conditions. I know they knew, because Robert Bobb visited the school I worked at while we had no custodial staff and only half the bathrooms worked - in 2009. He knew, and he did nothing to improve conditions. The rest of them must have known too. And they did nothing.

It isn't the job of the teachers to glue ceiling tiles back to the ceiling. It isn't their job to fix the plumbing or the boiler. But it is their job to report until an investigation is taken seriously. It is their job to protect their students.

If the administration didn't act, and it was illegal to strike, what choice did teachers have but to call in sick until something got done? Who was going to speak out for the children? Should teachers have called CPS on behalf of every single child until CPS had to pull every child from school?

CPS doesn't have the resources to do that. Nor should the conditions at schools be tantamount to child abuse or neglect.