Influence of Law & Ethics in Practice

Mindlab Activity 4

1 (What): An ethical dilemma that I have faced in the past is very similar to one of the issues discussion in one of the videos from this week's required activities, and relates to students being photographed/videoed and shared on social media.


At my school, we ask permission upon enrollment of students, for their child to be published on our school website, newsletters, school facebook page and pictures displayed around the school. A parent approached me oneday, annoyed, saying that 'their' child was on our school Facebook page and they were not happy about this. Originally they had signed for their child to be published online, but didn't think this meant social media. They further complained that other parents were taking photos at sports days, which included 'their' child, and were posted on social media. This was seen a more of a problem, as it was not only on our School Facebook page, but individual parents Facebook pages, which we had no control over.


Step 2 (So What): According to Ehrich, Kimber, Millwater & Cranston (2011) the following should be considered when being faced with this dilemma: professional ethics, legal issues or policies, organisational culture, the institutional context, the public interest, society and community, the global context, the political framework, economic and financial contexts. In my case, I went straight to find the original document that the parent had signed, to see if in fact ‘they’ had given permission for us to publish photos online - which they had. I further considered our organisational culture, the public interest, our local and wider community(ies), and asked myself whether removing all photos of this particular child was the best plan of attack.


Before moving further with this dilemma, I asked the meet with the parent again. We discussed what ‘they’ thought ‘publish online’ meant, and found it did not match the school’s description. With the parent, I discussed ‘their’ options. These included, a new form being signed saying that the school didn’t have permission to publish photos online. In doing this, ‘they’ would have to agree that he child could also not be in our school newsletters and school magazine, as these are shared with our whanau on our school Facebook page. Further to this, I posted on our school Facebook page that any photos other parents may have of students, would need to have my approval before being posted on our school Facebook page. This did not solve the issue of other parents posting pictures of their own children on Facebook, that may showcase this particular child. This was discussed as a staff at a staff meeting, with only one manageable solution, that this child be excluded from all EOTC activities.


All these solutions would allow this child to not be published online, however wasn’t being fair to the child as they would need to be excluded from many of the activities that would be showcased by the school, which included our “Caught Being Good’ Award. This would not be the best outcome for the child and they would miss out on much of what the other students would have access to.


Step 3 (Now What): The ideas were discussed with the ‘parent’, with the final decision left in ‘their’ hands. The parent decided that they too did not want their child to miss out on a quality education, and that photos in Newsletters and in the school magazine would be acceptable, because they aren’t directly loaded onto Facebook, but would prefer photos not to be loaded onto Facebook directly. As a school, we had to ensure that all parents understood our policy around photos/videos being taken, and reworded the policy to explicitly state the inclusion of Social Media as a media online.


Ehrich, L. C. , Kimber M., Millwater, J. & Cranston, N. (2011). Ethical dilemmas: a model to understand teacher practice, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 17:2, 173-185, DOI: 10.1080/13540602.2011.539794