Task 7: Personal and Organizational Ethics

Course: Leadership of Education

Name: Duarte, Ma.Elaina Nuwee Alnen A.
Section: MAFCFS-G

1. Create a flowchart that shows your school’s corrective action process in dealing with
a teacher or group of teachers who violated the School’s Ethical Standards. Choose
from any of the following violations:
a. Corruption
b. Illicit affair
c. Substance abuse
d. Cyberbullying

Before I give my answer to the question, I would like to share my experience in dealing
with this violation. I am not directly involved in this matter but my conscience has been
bothering me since Day 1. I have been accused of spreading gossip about this matter
which is otherwise the reality. Personally, I do hope that our school has an action to this. An
Illicit affair has been ongoing in our school for years now. Teachers who are close to the
persons involved have been very mum about it, or they decided to just support the
relationship since our immediate head is the one involved. Sadly, our former school head
ignored the matter and did not do anything about it.

Ideally, the school’s corrective action about this should go this way:

START and gather data and information about the

case

Evaluate information gathered from the people around

the persons involved and concerned. Ensure that bias
and prejudice does not exist within the group

Talk to the parties concerned and forward the issue to the

department involved in the issue. If the persons involved
decides to take or push thru a legal action, another concern
is in place

1
 2

The case should be Did the The case should be closed and
investigated and forwarded to concerned be solved by the parties
YES NO
either DepEd, Civil Service parties file a involved
Charter and the like legal case?

Case should be
reviewed by the
parties involved and
Case should be solved and
the offices where it
closed
was submitted

2. Read the case study then answer the guide questions below.

Robert is on the basketball team in one of the public schools in Manila. He's a
high profile player on the team, and as a result, he has a lot of followers on Twitter
and a large network on Facebook. For this reason, the members of the athletic board
at his school think it's necessary to monitor his social media accounts. In Manila, there
is no law to prevent schools from requiring individuals to give up their personal social
media login and password information, so Robert is forced to hand over his social
media account information.
School officials say that monitoring intends to identify potential compliance and
behavioral issues early on, enabling athletic departments to educate athletes on how
to present themselves online. They regularly check what Robert posts and flag certain
postings with which they have issues.
One day Robert tweets "Skipping class to break bad #schoolsucks #bettercallsaul
#breakingbad." Since Robert publicly admits to skipping class, school officials flag the
post and decide to also start monitoring Robert's email account without informing him.
Since the school provides an email account as a service to its students and
faculty, it reserves the right to search its own system's stored data. According to the
college's student handbook, administrators may access student email accounts to
safeguard the system or "to ensure compliance with other school rules." The policy
does not mention whether or not account owners have to be notified that their emails
are searched.
 When searching for Robert's email account, school officials find several
questionable emails between Robert and his tutor. It seems that Robert's tutor has
been sending him all answers to homework assignments and quizzes. As a result of
the investigation, Robert is placed on athletic probation and his tutor is fired.

a. Should schools be allowed to monitor student email and social media accounts?
If so, under what circumstances?
The issue has been under many discussions since the existence of several social
media platforms and the multiple cases of cyberbullying has come to light. Since
social media is a public platform, the public has access to it and that anyone can
see what anyone is posting. Schools should be able to remind students that their
posts may or can indirectly influence the reputation of the school. It will be
inappropriate for schools to go fishing around students’ accounts. However, if it
will directly affect the school reputation, the school can monitor these accounts.
Schools should develop a culture that everyone should look out for each other
and that everyone should be responsible enough in using their social media
platforms.
b. What crosses the line between campus safety and invasion of privacy?
Ideally, a stability ought to be struck between creating an environment of
safety and security, via the usage of finest practices or strategies (including
but not restricted to campus surveillance and monitoring), and preserving
student privacy and different protected rights. No matter what security
measures are taken by the school, there is no such thing as a assure that acts of
violence on campus will likely be prevented within the future. Moreover, such
measures cannot end civil fits alleging negligence for failure to exercise
ordinary care in taking applicable precautions, or these alleging
unwarranted intrusions into pupil privacy rights ensuing from school
actions.

c. Are school rules regarding email and social media monitoring too vague? If so,
how can these rules be changed for more clarity?
Yes. There are a lot of issues about email and social media monitoring. Some of
them are discussed below:

• Lack of transparency-Parents should be informed of this decision in email

and social media monitoring. Consent should be asked from the parents.
• Data concerns-Parents had in depth issues about pupil knowledge
collection, retention, and sharing.
• Lack of choice and knowledge about proper use of social media
• Overreliance on “privacy by policy
• Need for digital privateness coaching and education. Each student and
teacher should have a higher coaching in privacy-conscious know-how
use.
Schools should be able to orient the learners and the parents on the proper use
of email and social media monitoring. The schools should also teach digital
literacy as early as primary grades so that they will be able to avoid these kinds
of issues and concerns early on. School rules should be clear and should
encompass the social media platforms as one of the spaces that they monitor.
d. Should Robert have been punished for cheating in class if he did not know his
email was being monitored? What about his tutor?
The school should have placed clear rules about cheating in class and monitoring
email accounts and invading the privacy of the learners. The tutor, although guilty
of academic dishonesty, should be able to fight or contest that the conversations
between Robert and him/her are considered private.