Hi Tina

I think the first priority is to report this to the police. This is something that should be put into the hands of the proper authorities. I don’t know much about this sort of thing but I would think the police would involve Social Services and an assessment would be made of what happened and what should follow.

I’m sure you will get responses from people who work in education. As a member of the public, I’m horrified that someone who could make this series of decisions should have any responsibility for children. I say series of decisions because of how she acted when challenged and what she did after that. If she had left a dog in a car all day you’d call the RSPCA. This is worse.

Is there any possibility this person was acting under the influence of prescription medication or illegal drugs or has some health condition that caused this colossal lapse in judgment?

What would you do if you discovered that a parent had left a child in a car all day? The child’s welfare takes priority over the person’s employment.

Hi
Agree with Elizabeth that this needs to be reported to the relevant authorities.
The school needs to seriously consider whether someone who could decide to do this should be employed to care for/teach children. The lack of judgement is appalling and needs to be questioned seriously and quickly. I am not an advocate for suspending an employee until judgement made but in this instance, although it may not be a disciplinary matter, I believe it must be done to safeguard the children in the school as the employee is obviously not 'thinking straight' at this time.

Joke:- "Whats worse than leaving a dog in a car??" OH!!! I thought leaving a child in a car was a joke - but clearly not. :-(

You are perfectly entitled to tell someone to' 'go home!' - its a reasonable management instruction under the circumstances. I'm horrified that an adult with responsibility for other people thinks its acceptable to leave an 11 year old in a car for more than twenty minutes, let alone a whole day.

As for approaching the situation, I think the only way is directly without beating about the bush and follow the suggestions of Susan and Elizabeth.

In reply to Susan May:

I agree with Susan. Until this has been looked into, this person should not be in charge of children. I'd suspend or seek other duties where she is not in charge of children. What then happens to her professionally will fall out of the investigation.

Thank you everyone. We have already reported this to the authorities and will have a discussion with the person first thing in the morning. Depending how that goes we will make a decision whether she will be suspended during the investigation. What we are not so clear about is should we keep the safeguarding and HR aspects separate or we are ok addressing it together? In this scenario we all feel like there is a very blurred line of the two and we aim to do things the right way as the person has union connections and 100% sure that she will attack the decision whatever that will be.

In reply to Tina:

You have to be very clear what ( if anything ) you are disciplining her for.

Generally it is not an employers concern how a parent brings up their children unless ...

1) it happens on the employers premises or

2) it brings the employer into disrepute or

3) it goes to heart of their judgement and there can be a read across into work ( very rare)

In your case I would say you certainly have evidence to proceed to an investigation on (1) & (3) and given possibility of parents seeing I would say (2) as well.

I would treat it as an employer / employee disciplinary case personally around three areas above.

( before someone says it ... I would treat  any alleged illegality the same as I treat all illegality - it’s how it impacts that’s important )