Question

Mr. Armstrong is a 3rd grade Language Arts teacher, at Cold Creek Elementary. He shares students with his teaching partner, Mrs. Long, who teaches Math, Science and Social Studies. These two teachers have been teaching partners for several years, and have shared personal information with each other as it pertains to their work and home life. Recently, Mrs. Long has confided in Mr. Armstrong about difficulties she is having with some medication she takes for anxiety, and she let him know that she would be missing school in to go to a doctor’s appointment for help with the issue. While Mrs. Long was out for her appointment, Mr. Armstrong let the substitute, who is also a parent of a student who attends Cold Creek Elementary, know that Mrs. Long would probably be needing her several more times in the upcoming weeks, saying specifically that she would be visiting the doctor until she gets her anxiety controlled by her medications. Mr. Armstrong’s purpose in speaking to the substitute was only to see about securing her for upcoming days because he prefers to have consistency for the students.

Questions: 1. Identify the behaviors that you believe violate standards in the Educator Code of Ethics?

2. Which standards do you think were violated, explain your reasoning.

3. What different choices or actions, could Mr. Armstrong have chosen in order to act in accordance with the code of ethics.

Answer 1

1 & 2. The behavior seen here is disclosing confidential information regarding Mrs. Long to the substitute by Mr. Anderson.  As per the code of ethics for educators belonging to principle 3, point 1, it can be understood that confidential information of one colleague should no be disclosed to another. This is the one which is broken by Mr. Anderson by disclosing the anxiety treatment of his colleague to substitute who is also a parent of one of the students. Another code of ethics broken belongs to principle 4, point 1, where details regarding a teacher are disclosed to a parent when only details regarding the concerned student should be disclosed to his/her parent.

2. The best choice which Mr. Armstrong must have taken would be informing the substitute that Mrs. Long who was one of the best teachers is on a long term vacation due to personal reasons. The substitute must also be told that he/she is expected to give the highest standard of teaching to students until Mrs. LOng returns as to match with the standards of teaching followed by the school till date.