House Committee Approves Bill that Protects Teachers from Bad Students, Unfair Cases

In past generations, parents admonish their children when they get bad grades but these days, many parents get angry at the teachers for giving their children bad grades!

While such is the subject of funny memes, there’s truth to the situation and many teachers have actually experienced being at the receiving end of a parent’s anger for a student’s low performance in school.

What’s worse is that there are teachers who were slapped with unfair cases for matters of classroom management and student discipline. A lot of students complain of getting unfair treatment from their teachers, not realizing that they were disciplined because of their bad behavior or low performance in school.

ACT Teachers Party-List Representative Antonio L. Tinio seeks to protect teachers from these unfair cases through House Bill No. 5735, known as the “Student Discipline and Teacher Protection Act”.

Tinio pointed out that most teachers in public schools already experience the burden of oversized classes, heavier tasks due to the K to 12 program, and multiple shifts each school day.

Moreover, these teachers, who happen to be the frontliners in providing education to millions of young children, also have to suffer the burden of finding it difficult to instill classroom discipline.

“While child protection is indispensable, teacher protection is also a must,” Tinio pointed out.

To help teachers, the Department of Education (DepEd) is mandated to create and implement a student manual.

As long as the teachers or school staff follow the correct protocol in handling the disciplinary action based on the disciplinary rules and procedures that will be released by DepEd, then the act will not be considered a violation of RA 7610.

The DepEd will also need to provide training for teachers with regard to child behavior and psychology as well as classroom management techniques.

Most importantly, the DepEd is mandated to “protect teachers and school personnel in cases related to student discipline and classroom management.”

When faced with these charges, the DepEd is supposed to protect the teachers through providing legal assistance and representation as well as ensuring confidentiality of the proceedings as well as the identity of all parties involved.