High School Policy relating to One on One Coaching Contact

Train on your own time. You are impeding on the young people and their ability to develop relationships. If you feel you must supervise them on the road / trails, get a bike. Coaches that run with the kids are creepy or worse. Secondly, listen to your bosses. They have these rules for a reason, and its mostly to protect you from creative students that don't get their way.

DONT wrote:

Train on your own time. You are impeding on the young people and their ability to develop relationships. If you feel you must supervise them on the road / trails, get a bike. Coaches that run with the kids are creepy or worse. Secondly, listen to your bosses. They have these rules for a reason, and its mostly to protect you from creative students that don't get their way.

What he said, end of thread

DONT wrote:

Train on your own time. You are impeding on the young people and their ability to develop relationships. If you feel you must supervise them on the road / trails, get a bike. Coaches that run with the kids are creepy or worse. Secondly, listen to your bosses. They have these rules for a reason, and its mostly to protect you from creative students that don't get their way.

Seems like you missed the point and not sure what is "creepy or worse" about a coach running with their athletes?

I believe the original poster was wondering about school policies of running OR biking with athletes in a one on one situation. Seems like your administration has no clue about how high school cc works and how there are many different ability levels within each program and it's rare to see teams run all workouts in groups at all times.

Ask them how being one on one with an athlete on the streets, at the track, or on the trails is any different than a teacher being one on one in a classroom after school getting extra help with that class?

New HS Coach wrote:

So I have been told that me, and my assistant coaches can NOT run with an individual athlete at a practice as that would violate a school policy of one-on-one contact. As a teacher, it's acceptable to help an individual student in the classroom one-on-one as long as the door is open. How they don't see that there is no door to keep open or closed when running outside at our track, in our down, or park is beyond me.

......

Has anyone had to deal with such policies and has anyone found language that allows coaches to actually be able to run with/bike with/coach these kids once they no longer are running in a group?

If you're running with the top athletes, then there are probably more than one so you're fine.

If you're running with the mid packers and beginners then you'll probably be running in a one on one situation frequently.

This is what i did; I never ran with one athlete for very long. I'd run a quarter mile with one athlete and then speed up or slow down until i got to the next athlete. Doing this i could give feedback, motivation, tips to nearly the whole team and have a mini fartlek workout for myself - plus i was never alone with an athlete for very long.

As with most teacher-student interactions there are lines you shouldn't cross. Lawyers will give you a line that is extremely conservative that keeps the possibility of a lawsuit at a minimum and the likelihood of losing a lawsuit nearly nil. However, that line is so far from reasonable levels of normal human interaction that most cross that line. There's also the cliff where you're going to lose lawsuits which means big money to the school, the insurer of the school, your livelihood, etc.

When discussing this with an expert at a school law seminar, he said I can tell you where to operate that will keep you and the school safe. How far you want to go past that line is a personal choice to some degree but if it puts the school at risk then it's not just a personal choice.

An example we dicussed was having a pancake run from a coach's home. Parents would be there making breakfast while the kids and the coach were out doing a long run. Harmless? I thought so. The lawyer said if there were ever a claim of inappropriate relations and a kid could describe various parts of the inside of my home, it could become problematic.

It's the same kind of thing with giving a kid a ride home, or anytime you are one-on-one with a student, where it becomes your word against their's.

I would say running around town, the track, or any open area where you would be visible to other athletes I would think you are perfectly safe... unless of course you are in the habit of telling off-color stories in a group setting and inappropriate conversations would be plausible.

The school is still liable for what happens at practices, too. So if you've been told "this is where the school has decided to draw the line" then you have to decide whether you can live with that or move on to a different situation.

Our legalistic society and pedophiles have created an environment that makes many normal human interactions out of bounds. What's permissible will vary from one community to another. Find a place that matches your values or a place where you can adjust to match theirs.

The long term damage to your reputation and career from one false accusation that gains traction far outweighs the hassle of complying with what seems to be stupid rules. You don't have to be convicted or even arrested for irreparable harm to be done.