Illinois Imposes New Child Protection Requirements on Schools

A new law in Illinois requires schools to implement a long list of new child protection measures, including:

• post a resource guide on school websites about sexual abuse response and prevention resources in the community,
• develop an employee code of conduct that addresses the law’s new definition of “sexual misconduct” and identifies expectations regarding student-teacher boundaries, and
• post the employee code of conduct on the school website.

I don’t know of any evidence that these sort of steps actually help prevent abuse, and the employee code of conduct sounds like what is currently the industry standard for child protection policies. But there’s likely no harm from the new policies, unless they prove to be a distraction from more evidence-based protocols.

The law’s new definition of “sexual misconduct” is interesting and more complicated. It prohibits any communication or action “that is directed toward or with a student to establish a romantic or sexual relationship.“  The law includes specific examples, such as

• romantic invitations
• dating or soliciting a date
• romantic dialogue
• sexually suggestive comments
• self-disclosure or physical disclosure of a sexual, romantic, or erotic nature
• sexual or romantic contact with a student

This is a wide-ranging list that clearly has good intentions. I can foresee, however, situations where it will be too broad. For example, a school counselor’s telling a student that she is rape survivor would be a “self-disclosure . . . of a sexual . . . nature.” It also is not clear whether the standard is objective, or whether a student’s subjective interpretation of what is “romantic dialogue” determines whether the teacher has committed sexual misconduct. If the latter, then teachers will be well-advised to avoid any conversations outside school topics, and our children will miss out on important mentoring relationships.

We need more research to determine whether any of these well-intentioned policies actually meets the stated goals of protecting children. Channeling our inner Victorians may or may not help children as much as we hope.