Texas Educator Code Of Ethics Case Study

The Texas Educator Code of Ethics backs-up the student’s claim that the teacher had no right to invade her personal space. The teacher violated at least five different standards and could face severe punishment. The first and most obvious code that was broken is Standard 1.7 (1G). It states, “The educator shall comply with state regulations, written local school board policies, and other state and federal laws.” This means that the teacher has to obey all policies that the school board decides to add on top of that, they still have the state and federal laws to abide by. Students have the right to privacy, this may not be written out in the US Constitution, but the Fourth and Fifth
Amendments are the basis of this right and the teacher violated …show more content…
The right of privacy also pertains to confidentiality. Confidentiality is keeping something secret or private; information could be confidential in any kind of setting. Standard 3.1 (3A) says, “The educator shall not reveal confidential information concerning students unless disclosure serves lawful professional purposes or is required by law.” The student has a right of confidentiality if he/she doesn’t want certain information to be released. Smoking could be something that the student may not want others to know and revealing such information, whether it is true or not, is a violation of her rights as a student.
Trying to expose a student in such a manner does not only look bad for the student, but as well as for the teacher. Standard 3.3 (3C) sets forth that, “the educator shall not intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly misrepresent facts regarding a student.” This policy goes hand-in-hand with standards 1.10 (1J) and 3.8 (3H). To recite standard 1.10 (1J), “The educator shall be of good moral character and be worthy to instruct or supervise the youth of this state” and standard 3.8 (3H) states, “the educator shall maintain appropriate professional educator-student relationships and boundaries based on a reasonably prudent educator standard.” These three standards together articulate good morality and professionalism. Good moral wasn’t present because the teacher broke into the locker without consent, creating a break in the trust between the student and teacher. Personal boundaries were crossed because consent was not given to search the locker and this more than likely caused a scene creating a misrepresentation of the student. Others may start to believe that the student smokes and they may shun or make fun of