You’re a better man than me, as I dont think I could resist a “Told you so” in this situation…
Of course, I also dont know if I could stop myself (if I were your relative who was falsely accused) from tracking down the student who made the false accusation (destroying a career over a part in a fucking school paly) a few years later and torching her car.
The Rev. Billy Graham said he never met privately with a woman for an interview, to discuss business, (or pray, or whatever) without his wife present. My daughter’s Girl Scout leader told me there had to be two adults, her and an assistant leader, at every meeting or there could be no meeting. If a kid needed a ride home, she and the assistant both had to take her home.
It’s been less than a decade since I was in school and I can’t believe people have been reduced to operating that way. I stayed after school with a teacher in elementary school to make up some stuff I’d missed and she drove me home. My high school principal drove me home once when I missed the bus. I must have been alone in classrooms with teachers hundreds of times, although the classroom doors generally had a small window.
How does this kind even work, anyway? How does a school counselor talk to a student in private? I took some private music lessons at a music store; were they supposed to just leave all the practice rooms open and have the whole place be a screeching cacophony? I have a hard time believing it’s possible to avoid having adults alone with children. Are we going to abolish babysitting?
With the door open. At my high school the individual guidence counselors’ offices were part of a suite (the doors didn’t open directly into the hallways). The administrators had a similiar set up in the main office. In both cases there was a waiting area with a couch or bench away from the office and directly in front of the guidence secretary or the three main office secretaries. For the door to be closed either another staff member had to be present in the office or the student’s own parent/guardian.
On the other hand students were alone with teachers in all sorts of other situations, but usually with the door open. Before I got my licence the French teacher often drove me home afterschool when French Club meeting were over and I once got a ride to school from the principal who saw be walking on the side of the road when I missed the bus one winter morning). He seemed really freaked out that I was doing that. The school nurse was *frequently *alone with students behind closed foors and with no one able to see in (the little door window only showed the waiting area of the nursing suite).
Oh, and on overnight trips with boys & girls the had to be both a male and a female chaperone (also the school nurse had to go on each trip, no matter how few students there were). In theory each chaperone was to make do curfew checks on students students of their sex, but in practice the female teachers could (& did) check on boys; while the male one never checked on the girls.
This was especially true on our senior trip (with about 2/3rds of the senior class) where we had four chaperones; both class advisors & the school nurse (all women) and the male vice-principal who did nothing chaperony the entire trip (other than searching a few boys’ bags before we left the school for the airport). Other than that he spend the entire trip essentially on vacation and delegated everything involving supervising the students to the three women. Granted none of them cared what anybody of us did as long it wasn’t in front of them and nobody got arrested or had to go the ER.
Regarding school counselors, the ones I’ve met have stuck to the “physical barrier” rule with 3’ of desk between them and the interview chair.
Regarding how bad it is nowadays, I would disagree: it should have always been this way and it’s a shame it wasn’t like that decades ago. Imho, anyone who is in this situation should take the utmost precautions. There’s going to be a day, maybe not in everyone’s life, where the credit you banked into your reputation will become incredibly useful.
In my case, for example, if I were ever accused, I could bring up 10 years worth of students who met with me, and I treated them all the same, male or female. I could also have colleagues who, at the time, thought I was being too paranoid, but they could also verify that I have always had this policy, rain or shine.
You’re being paranoid - but it’s a sane paranoia, that could do with being extended to boys, too.
I don’t think there’s much chance of being accused, but it’s a minor, non-onerous choice in how you behave to close that chance up a little more and have a stronger defense in the small chance that someone will try to ding you, anyway.
I do think that it’s a bad thing for society that you’d need to take these steps, but that’s how things are right now.
Maybe I wasn’t clear–Back when I was teaching, I interacted with students one-on-one many times, just ALWAYS with my classroom door wide open…
The Police had something to say about this. It’s the video for their song “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”.
If I can offer one more bit of advice to the standard “public for both genders,” it would be to have a laptop with a camera that you can use to record your sessions. You need to make sure that you get the parents’ permission to do this, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to get. I have friends who do this and it not only helps them keep track of what’s being covered and how well the student is learning it, it also gives a record of the teacher’s and student’s behavior during the sessions.
It is sad that people who work with kids have to think this way, but considering the minuscule but real risk of being accused of wrongdoing, it’s better to be a little paranoid than facing a lawsuit or worse.
Sod perfect world, even in a very imperfect world it shouldn’t feel skeevy. It’s not even mostly the screwballs’ fault* - it’s the over-reacting people who it never happened to.
Obviously without any screwballs it wouldn’t come up (well, maybe some people could imagine it) - but the overreactions are ludicrous. I’m not even certain what is most to blame - but my hunch, and it’s unsupported, is it’s what happens when conservative types try to be feminist. They take their puritain ideology, but also their lack of thought and willingness to be lead by authority - the feminists - and come up with an utterly bizzare conclusion no thinking person can support*
**This is definitely not a criticism of feminism. This is a criticism of conservatives trying to embrace feminism.
I’d say your not being paranoid enough… but i have been fired from a job due to a minor who didn’t care for me lying about something i’d said.
I definitely think that your paranoia should be gender-neutral. This is probably just because the accusation that I remember most hurting a teacher was a boy to a male teacher. Or maybe because the problems in the Catholic Church have tended to be male-male. Anyway, from my perspective, the perception problem is as bad with boys as girls.
Indeed 
That said, I never had a job that included being in regular contact with youngsters (last time was giving maths lessons in my early 20s), so I don’t know what I would do. On one hand, I hate with a passion the fact that normal interactions between adults and children are now involving more and more suspicion, but on the other hand I don’t know if I wouldn’t become paranoid too (actually, I already became paranoid. I recently caught myself twice being uneased simply because, as an adult male, I was in a park where plenty of kids were present, wondering whether moms would wonder whether I could have nefarious motives).
An ex teaching in a middle school where there’s no policy about being alone with the kids refuse to stay in a closed space with her pupils, regardless of gender, despite being a female. I can’t swear I wouldn’t do the same, despite being highly annoyed by the current state of affairs.
These are some reasons I would never work with anyone under the age of 18 for any reason. My dad refuses to even touch children in any way. No pats on the head or high-fives even.