The Yard Duty Test

Cameras aren't yard duty.

A school playground covered by security cameras, with no yard duty assigned, is recorded but not supervised.

The footage exists. Every corner, every minute. If something goes wrong, the recording can be pulled and reviewed. But while the playground is in use, no adult is watching, intervening, or noticing the patterns that precede a problem.

That is the difference between a record and supervision.

Why this matters for staff-student communication

Some schools have approved a platform for teacher-student communication. Many have not approved one for staff-student communication outside the classroom, where coaches, advisors, and activity sponsors operate. Among the platforms that exist, many log what is sent. Fewer schools have asked a harder question: while those conversations are happening, is anyone watching?

Logging is the camera. Supervision is the yard duty.

Districts that rely on logs alone can answer questions after a concern is raised. They can pull records, retrieve messages, and reconstruct what occurred. What they cannot do is notice a pattern developing in week three of a season, or see that a staff member's one-on-one messaging to a single student has tripled, or flag a conversation that does not yet contain anything explicit but is heading somewhere it should not go.

Those are the things yard duty catches. A platform that only logs cannot.

The yard duty question

If your district's communication platform were the playground, who is the yard duty?

• Is there someone whose job includes a daily review of staff-student messaging?
• Do they have the tools to spot patterns over time, not just individual messages?
• If a coach, advisor, or activity sponsor began drifting toward inappropriate communication, would your district notice in week three, or only after a report in week twelve?

These are not theoretical questions. SB 848 requires districts to define limits on staff-student electronic communication. The limits themselves are the easier part. The harder part is showing, in practice, that someone is actually watching.

Related

The Lawyer Test — How a deposition might go in the unfortunate event of staff misconduct, comparing a district with active supervision to one with logs alone.

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