Teachers frustrated by unjustified child abuse reports by parents

An AI-generated image depicting a parent burdening a school teacher [CHATGPT]

The most daunting presence in classrooms is often invisible and absent — a parent who reports teachers for child abuse for merely disciplining their children.

Complaints filed by students’ parents accounted for 45.4 percent of cases involving violations of teachers' rights last year, the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations (KFTA) said Monday.

The numbers came from 438 cases in which schoolteachers sought counseling after their rights were infringed, including 199 parental complaints, according to the KFTA report. Complaints involving parents have accounted for the largest share of teacher-rights violations for four consecutive years since 2022, the teachers’ group said.

Cases involving fellow school staff totaled 111, or 25.3 percent, followed by 61 cases involving students, or 13.9 percent, and 55 cases tied to personnel or employment matters involving administrators and other authorities, or 12.6 percent.

The latest report found that child abuse allegations arising from disciplining students have become one of the biggest burdens among teachers.

Of the complaints filed by parents, 125 concerned student discipline. Of them, 74 cases, which accounted for 59.2 percent, accused teachers of child abuse, according to the teachers’ group.

The cases varied widely.

In one case, a teacher was reported after a student fell while the teacher was trying to stop the student from approaching in a threatening manner. In another case, a parent filed a complaint after a teacher reportedly told students “not to come too close.” A teacher was even accused of emotional abuse for asking a student to solve math problems in front of the classroom during individualized instruction based on the student’s test results.

Prospective first graders and their parents look around first-grade classrooms at Changsin Elementary School in Busan on Jan. 6 during orientation. [YONHAP]

Another teacher, who told a student during counseling that it felt like the student had already made a year’s worth of mistakes, was later reported for child abuse. Prosecution cleared the charges.

The KFTA said the growing wave of complaints is making teachers increasingly hesitant to engage in normal educational activities.

“How can schools function properly when even correcting inappropriate behavior becomes grounds for complaints and child abuse reports?” KFTA President Kang Joo-ho said.

Meanwhile, violations of teachers’ rights by students also remained a serious problem, the KFTA report said.

The KFTA report cited cases in which a middle schooler wrote sexually harassing comments about a teacher on an electronic whiteboard; another student threatened to “bring a knife and kill” a teacher after being told to stop using a cell phone in class; and female teachers were subjected to body-shaming insults.

Existing measures introduced by the Ministry of Education to protect teachers’ rights are insufficient to protect teachers in the field, according to the federation. The organization called for clearer standards defining emotional abuse, a state-backed legal support system for lawsuits stemming from educational activities and mandatory countersuits by superintendents against malicious complaints.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.