JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Duval County Public Schools is better defining student and teacher boundaries through the “Know the Line” campaign.
Several weeks ago News4JAX received a report that showed 19 teachers or staff had been temporarily removed from their positions as a result of the “Know the Line” campaign.
News4JAX reached out to the school district for an interview about how the campaign is going. They pointed us to superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier’s comments during the Oct. 1 school board meeting.
“We continue to work the process of ‘Know the Line,’" Bernier said. “I do believe we’ve had more teachers this year identified and put on temporary duty but that’s exactly what should be happening in an organization that is now watching more carefully to ensure both our students, adults, and other people who visit our school are in the safest position possible.”
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Darshini Vancheeswaran is a senior at a Duval County high school.
She was one of five students who spoke to school board members during public comment in March about their concerns about sexual harassment happening in school environments and a lack of awareness of Title IX protections.
News4JAX spoke with her several days after that meeting in March and we asked her to share her thoughts on the campaign. She says it’s helping students understand how to make a report if they have an issue at school.
“It’s become a lot more well known that you can report, who you can report to, how you can do this. And I think especially the definitions that they’ve provided with this, like they’ve explained, ‘OK, this is bad. This is what sexual misconduct is. This is what teacher-student relationships look like,’” Vancheeswaran said. “So I think that’s also really helped.”
DCPS has a page on its website dedicated to “Know the Line.” It has definitions of healthy boundaries between students and teachers including:
- Communication: There should be no interactions between students and employees via phone calls, text, or social media. The only appropriate communication outside of school should be through district-approved and monitored platforms.
- Physical Contact: Employees and students are discouraged from any physical contact beyond a handshake, a high-five, or a fist bump.
- Meetings: Employees are encouraged to plan ahead so they’re not alone with students but they acknowledge there are certain cases where this may be unavoidable. In those cases, employees are encouraged to balance the need for student privacy while still making sure they’re in another individual’s line of sight.
The page also has a link to make a report.
Vancheeswaran says the process of making a report through the “Know the Line” page is pretty simple for the most part.
“Hopefully they’ll look at these issues in a timely manner, which is, I think, one of the big issues, the time it takes for some of these investigations to go through,” said Vancheeswaran. “But hopefully with the new ‘Know the Line’ campaign, it’s going to be a lot speedier and better.”
While Vancheeswaran will graduate at the end of the school year, it means a lot to her that “Know the Line” makes the definition of healthy boundaries and reporting resources more accessible for students, teachers, and staff.
“Students are inevitably going to feel safer in schools and not have to question, ‘Oh, is this real? Who do I talk to? How do I go about reporting something like this,’ being able to know that without having to figure that information out for yourself,” Vancheeswaran said.
News4JAX put in a records request to the district Monday afternoon to get further details on several of the teachers who were temporarily removed from their positions as a result of the “Know the Line” campaign.
We also asked for clarification on the amount of reports made since the start of the campaign. We’ll update you when we have those answers.