The indecent behaviour by a group of year nine boys at a prestigious Catholic boys' college on Sydney's northern beaches has led to a police investigation and the taking of stress leave by the two female teachers involved. This incident has brought together a unique mix of student duty of care and workplace health and safety issues for the school involved but all schools can learn from this incident.

According to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald, the boys, from St Augustine's College at Brookvale, used iPhones to photograph and video up the skirts of two teachers and then shared the images on a specially created thread on Facebook.  St Augustine's is not the first school to have attracted media attention for an incident of upskirting occurring at school. However, many of the previous incidents have involved inappropriate conduct by teachers rather than students (see this Age article for previous examples).

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the boys involved were suspended, while another five boys who followed the Facebook thread have been 'disciplined'. It is understood the offenders have had 're-enrolment' interviews and have since returned to the school.

This incident raises several areas of risk for schools, especially the potential conflicts that may occur between the duty of care owed to students and the duty of care owed to staff to provide a safe workplace. The risks of social media usage, the use of personal devices and adequacy of policies to mitigate these risks, are also issues to consider.

Workplace Safety Obligations:  Under workplace health and safety (WHS) legislation all schools have a duty of care to teachers to provide them with a safe working environment and protect them from harm. Whilst schools often focus on the duty of care owed to students, it is important to have regard to the fact that school staff are themselves not immune to workplace stresses and the harm that can be caused by negative student behaviour. The law requires that such workplace hazards should be recorded on a school's hazard register and analysed in terms of the likelihood of a particular hazardous event occurring and the degree of harm that might result in the event the risk event was to occur.  It is also incumbent upon schools to have robust systems in place to capture and record workplace incidents and to have processes in place to respond to these incidents in a timely way.

For those wanting more detailed information in relation to a school's WHS obligations under the harmonised legislation download the CompliSpace WHS Whitepaper.

School Policies:   Once a workplace hazard is identified a school must implement controls in order to minimise the likelihood of the risk event occurring and, where possible minimise the potential impact of such an event.   A common starting place for implementing controls is to develop appropriate policies and procedures.  So what kind of policies would be relevant for a situation such as the one faced by St Augustine's?  Here are some examples:

• Social Media Policies:  We use the word 'policies' deliberately because organisations often have different social media policies for business usage and personal usage.  Schools may also have different policies in place for staff and students.  They may also include social media usage in a 'parent code of conduct'. Whilst St Augustine's has a robust social media policy in place (it is available on its website) it is interesting to note that in a School Governance poll run in March 2014, a worrying 58% of respondents answered 'No' to the question "Has your school published and effectively implemented a social media policy?"
• Mobile Device Policy (Students):  Whilst many schools actively encourage the use of student mobile devices, inappropriate use has the potential, as experienced by St Augustine's, to facilitate conduct which is harmful to staff and students, or is illegal.  The purpose of a mobile device policy is to set out clearly a school's expectations with respect to responsible use by students.
• BYO Device Policy (Staff):  Staff will often be using their own mobile devices in addition to using those provided by the school to access work related information.  Personal and school devices may also be used by staff to access non-work related content.  To minimise the risk of staff or others misusing staff mobile devices during and outside school hours, schools need to implement and enforce appropriate security controls and measures such as passwords, inspections and bans on the installation and use of suspect applications which may expose staff and the school to risks of data breach or social media abuse.
• Student Code of Conduct: Documenting the values and standards of behaviour which a school expects of its students means that students have a clear reference point against which to measure their behaviour, or intended behaviour.  All members of the school community are affected by student conduct and it should be a communal responsibility to ensure that the expected standard of behaviour is adhered to.
• Student Discipline Policy: Discipline is necessary to ensure the safety and welfare of all students, teachers and staff and to provide a conducive learning environment.  Establishing a policy setting out a school's expectations of its students' behaviour and the use of procedural fairness in enforcing discipline are crucial elements of any effective discipline policy.  If students understand the implications of their actions before they act, they might think twice before challenging the values and behaviours expected of them.

Policy Integration: It's one thing to have lots of policies in place. It's another to actually implement those policies effectively within a school. For policies to be implemented effectively they need to be written in 'plain English' and they need to be communicated effectively to, and easily accessible by, their target audience.  Simply sticking up a policy on a school's internet site or making it accessible through an intranet, or shared drive, won't generally do the job.    The implementation of key policies, especially policies that address potentially high risk behaviours such as social media usage, usually require specific training and acknowledgement that the training has been received and understood.

Management Reporting: The effectiveness of policies and procedures to identify and control hazards at school can be measured against the incidents of such hazards, or the potential for such hazards, to occur.  School management need to actively engage with the policies in place and document and respond to incidents of non-compliance or hazard notification.  Technology, the law and society are not static and schools should also be actively monitoring and updating their risk management policies and frameworks to reflect changing times and expectations. Having a reporting framework in place as part of a broader corporate governance structure will ensure that key incidents are identified and corrective actions implemented.

The Aftermath: The speed and ferocity of modern media means that once an incident arises a school must know how to respond to it to the best of its ability.  Part of responding effectively will involve preparing plans and procedures to deal with critical incidents - which often involve uncontrollable consequences such as adverse media attention.   Having a Critical Incident Policy in place to follow if an incident escalates to a stage where the police, the public and other members of the school community are involved, will assist a school to control the incident.  A Media Communications Policy will help manage the impact of negative communications once an incident becomes public.

The incident at St Augustine's is an example of how a school, even though it might take all necessary precautions, including implementing policies and educating staff and students on risks, can experience the negative fall-out from the unexpected actions of its students.  It is often how the school reacts to such incidents that will determine whether, or to what degree, its reputation is damaged, or in fact enhanced.
Does your school have a WHS hazard register in place?  Is it regularly updated to take into account potential hazards as they are identified? Does your school have a robust set of policies and procedures in place to deal with risks arising from social media usage? Are these policies and procedures effectively implemented and maintained?