Was Christmas Stunt at School Worth the Risk?

Don't 'Elf' Around, Says Ladder Industry Group

An elementary school teacher/elf greets kids as they came to school Friday. The American Ladder Institute warns that using a ladder this way is risky.

Seems harmless enough: A teacher at Shadowlawn Elementary School in Green Cove dresses up as a Christmas elf, perches atop a six-foot step ladder and greets kids with impish enthusiasm as they arrive for the last day of classes before holiday break.

Fun time, right? Let’s post the video on Facebook and Instagram!

And so it was.

No one would disagree that climbing a ladder is not part of an elementary school teacher’s job description. Teaching in Florida is a heavily regulated profession. Teachers are required to stick to a lesson plan. They are bound by a dizzying list of do’s and don’ts and expected to adhere to a second list of professional best practices.

So, if performing on a ladder were part of the job, you can bet there would be rules and training for that too. Surely, those rules would come from the American Ladder Institute, a non-profit group devoted to ladder safety.

"Do not straddle the stepladder or sit on the top cap," says the Ladder Institute, noting that 160,000 people are injured and 300 die every year from ladder misuse. That point was made graphically by the Institute’s warning decal at the top of this story. More generally, the Institute says, “Never use a ladder for any purpose other than the ones for which it was intended.”

The ladder act also fell short of a familiar best-practice for ladder usage, maintaining three-point contact. Three-point contact is defined as two hands and a foot on the ladder at any one time or two feet and one hand.

People take risks every day, usually minor ones. Those of us who survive to old age have been analyzing risk subconsciously for our entire lives. First, we identify a risk: In this case, falling off a ladder. Then we engage in a two-phase examination of that risk.

The first question we ask ourself is, “How likely is this behavior to have a bad outcome?” Ladder lady was probably pretty confident she could get through a couple minutes up there without falling, even though a witness said she had been “instructed to act erratically.”

Then, there’s the second question to consider: “What are the potential consequences of falling off the ladder?”

Sitting on the top-cap of a step ladder would put the teacher’s head nearly nine feet above the concrete sidewalk. A stone dropped from that height is traveling at around 24 mph by the time it hits the ground. A human body is not a stone, but the math nonetheless suggests that the consequences of a fall could be anything but trivial. Potential harm ranges from scrapes and bruises to a busted skull.

Conclusion: Low risk of a bad event, but potentially deadly consequences were an event to happen. So, is greeting pupils with a ladder performance worth the risk?

We don’t have to go very far to find an example of how “good fun” at school can go south because the people in charge of a special event failed to conduct a proper evaluation.

The Clay County School District recently settled a lawsuit filed because of an injury that happened during a 2023 Senior Day tug-of-war event at Orange Park High School. Asked to participate, a visiting teenager was pulled into a metal pole, lacerating his face (requiring 23 sutures) and scarring him for life.

Lawyers for Louis Panella argued that the adults in the room had failed in their duty to evaluate and mitigate the risk in three ways:

• Failure to plan the bounds of the tug-of-war event such that no impediments or fixed objects, including the metal poles on the court, could be reasonably anticipated to impact or injure participants.

• Failure to have implement rules, including boundaries, referees, or other safeguards to prevent participants from reasonably foreseeable situations, including being pulled into the metal poles that were also outside of the bounds of the basketball court.

• By allowing adults to participate in the activity against minors.

The witness mentioned earlier in the story was the tipster who brought the elf stunt to the attention of Clay News & Views. He or she explained the reason for doing so:

The original plan was reportedly for the teacher to be on the roof in costume. Instead, the principal obtained a ladder and approved the teacher standing on it to carry out this activity. This is not an isolated incident. Similar unsafe or questionable activities have been approved in prior years.

This situation raises significant concerns regarding staff safety, administrative judgment and potential liability.

Have a safe and merry Christmas, everyone.