Do a school have a legal responsibility to pass on info to police if aware parents being unlawful with covid rules?

[NameChangerForQuestion]

If a school are made aware of parents clearly and obviously behaving in a way that’s against the law with regards to covid (I don’t just mean against guidance, I mean the law at that time eg going out to indoor public spaces unnecessarily during self isolation. I pick one example here but have many school have been informed of) do they have a legal obligation to pass this to the police? Is this something other people have heard schools of doing?

Whilst I’m here, if a school are not following the rules eg not sending home a child with any of the main 3 symptoms, is there someone that is the next port of call to contact so they can investigate the school?

Fwiw I am not the person behaving illegally!

I was asking a question which didn’t need my background to answer and didn’t look to seek judgement in this.

@Walkaround social media.

@AuntieStella I will see if I can find that article out of interest, thank you

The thing is, you’ve said you’ve repeatedly reported things to the school. That does smell a bit like a busy body that’s looking for brownie points unfortunately.

If someone has tested positive for Covid and is going to a public place by all means report directly to the police - they can do something about that. If someone’s only supposed to be isolating with no positive test then keep to yourself, it’s not your business and you don’t know the circumstances surrounding that.

@NameChangerForQuestion - you should report it to the police if you are the one accessing the social media “proof.” Why are you passing the buck? It is not a school’s job to spy on people’s social media accounts.

Also remember that people lie, on SM, just as they do on here.

@NameChangerForQuestion - you should report it to the police if you are the one accessing the social media “proof.” Why are you passing the buck? It is not a school’s job to spy on people’s social media accounts.

This! You've seen the evidence. No one is going to report anything on second hand information, especially when it's just from SM- your job if you think its serious enough.

Report it yourself.

The self-elected marshalls are out. Mind your own.
Stop tearing each other apart and direct your vigor towards this shambolic Government because you're contributing towards a communist outlook. Just stop it.

Schools will not act on information from other parents unless there are safeguarding concerns and unless the concern was so urgent it needed acting upon at that moment, it would be social services and not the police.

Schools informing on parents re Covid infractions is a terrible idea surely? I'm pretty rule observant but I would be deeply unimpressed if I heard of my school wading in like that with any other parent. A good test here is "Do I think my school should be informing on alleged minor parental infractions of the law as a matter of course?" If the answer is no than its also no for Covid.

No, our LA have specifically told us not to get involved beyond reminders re expectations.

We've also been told we can't refuse a child we know isn't following guidelines and we can't exclude for not following school covid related rules in school.

@NameChangerForQuestion

I was asking a question which didn’t need my background to answer and didn’t look to seek judgement in this.

@Walkaround social media.

Ah. That's clear then. You are judging everybody else, but nobody should be judging you. Isn't that somewhat hypocritical?

becomestronger that’s interesting, so in the case of a child coming in coughing does it mean you can’t actually send them home for breaking rules? I haven’t complained to my dds school but I know she is anxious about the girl she sits in front of coughing after the other girl tested positive for covid. I feel that I would get in trouble if I took my dd out of school yet nothing can be done about the other girl.

We send dc home if they have covid symptoms. Once the call is made the child is removed from the class and waits in the covid room until collected. Without a negative test that wound just keep happening, the child would not be left coughing or swearing with a fever in the class.

However what they do outside of school is not for us to police

@stealthninjamummy

becomestronger that’s interesting, so in the case of a child coming in coughing does it mean you can’t actually send them home for breaking rules? I haven’t complained to my dds school but I know she is anxious about the girl she sits in front of coughing after the other girl tested positive for covid. I feel that I would get in trouble if I took my dd out of school yet nothing can be done about the other girl.

I was thinking more of not wearing masks etc. If a child is visibly unwell we would isolate them and ask parents to come and collect them but if they don't come there's little we can do. If they tell us they've had a clear test we can't insist on seeing it before the child comes back. Although the vast majority of parents have complied without issue

We always ask to see the test result. Not sure if we could enforce that but thankfully no one has questioned it. I'm primary so no masks for dc but I can see that this is something they probably can't enforce in high school as people can say they are exempt etc

We've been told no child should miss education because of breaking Covid school rules about things like masks, one way systems and queuing.

Schools can ask for test results but can't insist, for staff or students. Thankfully most people are entirely reasonable.

There are so many posters on this thread trying to shoot the messenger (OP) instead of reading the message.

I think because OP is expecting the wrong people to respond to her message - delivering it to the wrong person. If she's witnessed law breaking this is a police matter not a schools

If you are aware of a matter that you feel should be reported to the police then you should report it to the Police. Not to school - the Police or Social Services will contact school if they need any information from them.

If you work in a school and become aware of a family that is breaking the Law then you report it through your school's procedures to the Designated Person, if the lawbreaking action could pose a safeguarding risk to the child, or to the Headteacher. They will have had the training to decide what to do with the information, or know who it contact if it is not clear.

@JingsMahBucket - the OP is indicating that they, or someone else, have been reporting multiple parents for having been seen in public places while they are supposed to be self-isolating. They have been reporting this to the school. Why? Why would a school report to the police behaviour unwitnessed by school staff, that did not take place in school, that is being reported potentially maliciously, and which school has no direct proof of? And how do you think the police would react to a school passing on messages from parents complaining about other parents’ behaviour? If the allegations are justified, then the witnesses need to make them and potentially be accused of making malicious, false accusations, rather than trying to get the school to interfere.

[quote Walkaround]@JingsMahBucket - the OP is indicating that they, or someone else, have been reporting multiple parents for having been seen in public places while they are supposed to be self-isolating. They have been reporting this to the school. Why? Why would a school report to the police behaviour unwitnessed by school staff, that did not take place in school, that is being reported potentially maliciously, and which school has no direct proof of? And how do you think the police would react to a school passing on messages from parents complaining about other parents’ behaviour? If the allegations are justified, then the witnesses need to make them and potentially be accused of making malicious, false accusations, rather than trying to get the school to interfere.[/quote]
You wrote all this but didn’t think about how this applies analogously in other regular safeguarding contexts like child abuse or sexual abuse? If those types of incidents were happening and other parents reported them to school, then yes the school likely be able to credibly report to the police based on “hearsay”.

If the parents in OP’s post were having multiple Covid pox parties, gatherings, and other violations which endanger the children or the community, that other parents witnessed, then yes the school could likely credibly report them to the police as well. The point is that it’s still child endangerment and with the added bonus of school community endangerment because they may be exposing other students to Covid.

This is not a game. All it takes is one person for the infection to go exponential. Why aren’t people getting this? Take the example of the wedding in Maine this summer that sickened 150 people in the community and 7 people died. None of the 60 people who attended the wedding actually got sick or died but they spread it to the surrounding community. You know who was patient zero? The fucking pastor who didn’t want to cancel the wedding and insisted it was no big deal. HE was the asymptomatic vector that started it all and that bastard still isn’t dead.

We’re nearly a year into this pandemic, during the worst season for illness and some people are still acting like indignant brats about doing their part to help the community. Un-fucking-believable.

@JingsMahBucket - you wrote all this but don’t explain why this is not being reported to the police by the other parents?

I see jingmahbuckets perspective here. I have an anxious dd who sits in front of two girls with bad coughs, in a small classroom, one of whom is now off having tested positive for covid. My dd will not be seeing vulnerable relatives at Christmas in case she gets it and spreads it. Again - without knowing what op was unhappy with - if it turned out that a few kids had sleepover parties I wouldn’t be happy but I would worry about telling the police about people who might be my friends. I was thinking of talking to dd’s teachers, maybe if dd sits near the back they haven’t noticed the coughing, but it seems like even if they had noticed it they couldn’t necessarily stop a child coming in anyway. I feel sorry for teachers who presumably don’t want to be exposed to covid either.