In video classes teachers parse clues to student wellbeing

Christi Brouder had finally gotten her 10-year-old daughter settled on the hallway floor with a laptop and signed into a video class on Google Meet when the girl's 6-year-old brother leaped over computer the screen “in his birthday suit” to get a juice box.

To Brouder's surprise, a social worker from the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families called her later that day; someone had reported an adult male exposing himself during the class. That was followed by a visit from a police detective sent by the school to do an in-person wellness check.

Brouder explained that her son has epilepsy and autism and sometimes takes his clothes off to feel more comfortable and the inquiry ended there.

But the experience left the mother in the city of Haverhill incensed, and underscores the challenge on educators to make judgments based on fleeting scenes or sounds from a webcam.

“The teachers never asked to speak to me. Nobody said anything” during the class, Brouder said.

Child protection laws require school personnel, along with health care workers and other professionals, to report any suspicions of neglect or abuse. The coronavirus pandemic and virtual instruction have only raised the stakes; in the absence of daily in-person school and extracurriculars, a teacher's video contact may offer the only window to spot potential problems in students' lives.

Many school districts that are still providing classes online have asked teachers to be on the lookout in students' backdrops for objects such as drug paraphernalia, caregivers who appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and children with injuries or poor hygiene or who are being demeaned regularly by adults.

It can be a difficult call.

“Do I look at that child and say, `Oh, he looks...