Legal Authority of Boards of Education to Enforce Rules and Regulations. II

Abstract

The rule is well established by many cases that school authorities may govern the conduct of pupils while off the school grounds and out of school hours. A board of education may discipline a pupil for any act, no matter where or when committed, provided the act tends immediately and directly to destroy the discipline and to impair the efficiency of the school.' In an early Vermont case a pupil, upon his return home from school, was sent to drive home a cow. While passing the teacher's house, in the presence of another pupil, he contemptuously called the teacher old Jack Seaver. The next morning after school opened, the teacher gave the offending pupil a sound whipping with a rawhide. In upholding the teacher in an action brought against him for assault and battery, the court rendered an opinion which has frequently been cited and quoted with approval. The court said: Where the offense has a direct and immediate tendency to injure the school and bring the master's authority into contempt, as in this case, when done in the presence of other scholars and of the master, and with a design to insult him, we