Boycott and bullying at school: when does staff negligence allow for compensation claims?

With the return of children to schools and kindergartens, a deep concern arises again among many parents: what happens when a child suffers from repeated harassment, social boycott, or violence, and the educational staff does not do enough to prevent it?

To bring clarity to this complex and sensitive issue, we spoke with attorney Uria Rosenblat. His office specializes in tort law, and in particular in damages caused to students in the education system as a result of boycotts, bullying, and educational failures.

When is school conduct considered negligence?

The legal starting point is that the responsibility of a teacher or educational staff member towards a student is similar to the responsibility of a parent to their children, and the younger the students are, the greater this responsibility becomes.

At the same time, the law distinguishes between different types of cases. When it comes to a sudden and one-time incident, such as a student pushing a friend during a break without prior warning, it is very difficult to impose legal responsibility on the teacher, as they had no ability to foresee or prevent the sudden incident. The matter is completely different when it comes to ongoing and repeated harassment that the staff knew about or should have foreseen in advance.

In cases where it is known that a student is in a risk group due to religious, ethnic background, or sexual orientation, the staff must exercise increased sensitivity and supervision. Rosenblat emphasizes that the state has defined very clear rules for dealing with these situations.

"We have an updated director-general circular, which details exactly how the staff should act in the case of a social boycott or a damaged educational climate," says Rosenblat. The circular clarifies the ways of handling, who to suspend, when to contact welfare authorities or the police, and emphasizes that the school's responsibility is not limited only to school hours but also extends to the digital space and social networks where most boycotts occur today.

Proving damage and determining compensation

Courts tend to treat the violation of a director-general circular as a breach of a statutory duty, which significantly facilitates the proof of negligence in a tort claim. In the world of torts, the main emphasis is on the actual damage caused to the student and not just on the act itself.

A child who goes through an ongoing system of abuse and harassment may end up with severe mental damage and significant disability percentages. The expert added that courts have already ruled in the past on significant compensation in cases of bullying and social exclusion, where awards can range from hundreds of thousands of shekels in cases of local failures to millions of shekels in particularly severe cases of mental injury.

However, to win such a lawsuit, it must be proven not only that the educational staff was negligent in handling the cases, but also that there is a direct link between the school's failure and the damage caused to the child. That is, the plaintiffs must convince the court that if the educational staff had acted in time and in the correct manner in accordance with the guidelines, the severe damage to the student would have been completely prevented.