If your child was hurt at a private school, almost none of Georgia’s school immunity applies to you. The wall is gone. What is left is the ordinary question every other injury case asks: did the people in charge use reasonable care?
I have written before about public school injury law in Georgia. It is a hard post to read. Sovereign immunity protects the school district. Official immunity protects the teacher, the coach, and the principal unless a parent can prove a “ministerial” duty or actual malice. Georgia’s appellate courts have said out loud that a de facto absolute immunity has grown up around school employees.
If your child was hurt at a private school, almost none of that applies to you.
That is the heart of this post. Parents of private school students often assume the school is as untouchable as the public school down the road. It is not. The wall is gone. What is left is the ordinary question every other injury case asks: did the people in charge use reasonable care?
What falls away at a private school
A private academy is not the State. There is no fight over whether supervising children was “discretionary” or “ministerial,” no need to prove actual malice, and no ante litem notice to a city or county.
Sovereign immunity comes from the Georgia Constitution. It protects the State and its departments and agencies, and the courts apply it to county school districts. Official immunity, in the same paragraph of the Constitution, protects public officers and employees. A private academy is not the State. A teacher at a church school is not a public officer. The Supreme Court of Georgia held in Hartley v. Agnes Scott College, 295 Ga. 458 (2014), that even the police officers of a private college were not state officers entitled to immunity.
So the questions that sink public school cases never come up:
- There is no fight over whether supervising children was “discretionary” or “ministerial.”
- There is no need to prove actual malice.
- There is no six-month or twelve-month ante litem notice to a city or county. The ordinary limitation periods apply, and you should read my post on the minor tolling statute before you rely on any of them.
Compare Barnett v. Caldwell, 302 Ga. 845 (2018). A public school teacher left her classroom, and a student was hurt. The school handbook said students were never to be left unsupervised. The Supreme Court held the teacher was immune anyway, because the policy was not definite enough to create a ministerial duty. At a private school, the same facts go to a jury on one question: was leaving those children alone reasonable?
What takes immunity’s place is ordinary negligence law:
- Supervision. A person who takes charge of children must use reasonable care commensurate with the reasonably foreseeable risk of harm. Thurman v. Applebrook Country Dayschool, 278 Ga. 784 (2004).
- Hiring and retention. O.C.G.A. § 34-7-20 requires an employer to use ordinary care in selecting and retaining employees. A school that keeps a teacher, coach, or driver after warning signs can answer for it.
- The campus itself. A student is an invitee. O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1 requires the school to use ordinary care to keep its premises and approaches safe.
What a private school will argue instead
Charitable immunity does not protect a charity from a beneficiary who pays for the service, and tuition is payment. A release cannot excuse gross negligence or willful and wanton conduct.
Losing immunity does not mean a private school has no defenses. These are the ones I see.
Charitable immunity. Many people are surprised to learn Georgia never abolished it. The Supreme Court of Georgia restated the rule in Ponder v. Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, 256 Ga. 833 (1987). A charity is shielded from its employees’ negligence unless it failed to use ordinary care in selecting or keeping them. But the doctrine has two large holes. It does not protect a charity from a beneficiary who pays for the service, and tuition is payment. And immunity is waived to the extent of the charity’s liability insurance, Morehouse College v. Russell, 219 Ga. 717 (1964). The Court of Appeals applied that insurance rule to a charity that ran a parochial school in Lamb v. Redemptorist Fathers of Georgia, 111 Ga. App. 491 (1965). A nonprofit school may raise the defense. It rarely ends the case.
The enrollment contract. Read every page you signed. Many private schools put a release, a waiver, or an arbitration clause in the enrollment agreement or the athletic packet.
- A release cannot excuse gross negligence or willful and wanton conduct. McFann v. Sky Warriors, Inc., 268 Ga. App. 750 (2004).
- Whether a parent’s signature can waive the child’s own claim for ordinary negligence is not settled by a Georgia appellate court. In Christian v. Eagles Landing Christian Academy, 303 Ga. App. 113 (2010), the trial court refused to enforce the parents’ release, and the Court of Appeals decided the case on other grounds.
- Georgia’s arbitration code excludes agreements to arbitrate future personal injury claims, O.C.G.A. § 9-9-2(c)(10). The Federal Arbitration Act can override that exclusion when interstate commerce is involved. An arbitration clause is a fight, not a forfeit.
Assumption of risk in sports. Christian is the case private schools cite. A 14-year-old cheerleader was hurt performing a stunt without her coach close by. The court ruled for the school because she had done that stunt hundreds of times and knew stunting without a coach was against the rules. The same court said a teenager does not assume every risk just by playing a sport. The facts matter.
Bullying: aim at the school, not only the other child’s parents
O.C.G.A. § 51-2-3 makes a parent liable for a child’s willful or malicious acts, but only up to $10,000 plus court costs. At a private school, the school is usually the defendant who matters.
When one child badly hurts another, parents are told to go after the other family. Georgia has a statute for that, O.C.G.A. § 51-2-3, and I have written about it before. It makes a parent liable for a child’s willful or malicious acts, but only up to $10,000 plus court costs, and only for medical expenses and property damage. The statute says its purpose is controlling juvenile delinquency, “not to provide restorative compensation to victims.” For a broken orbit, a brain injury, or a child who will not go back to school, $10,000 is not an answer.
Here is what else can reach the case.
The other parents’ own negligence. Section 51-2-3 does not limit other remedies. A parent who knew the child had a propensity for the specific kind of violence, and did nothing, can be liable for negligent supervision without the cap. The bar is high. In Garcia v. Grepling, 254 Ga. App. 219 (2002), two prior school suspensions for ordinary schoolyard scuffles were not enough notice. A documented history of hurting people is.
The child who did it. In Georgia, infancy is no defense to a tort once a child reaches the age of discretion, which is 13. O.C.G.A. §§ 51-11-6 and 16-3-1. A 15-year-old can be sued directly. Most 15-year-olds have nothing to collect.
Homeowners insurance, maybe. Most policies exclude intentional acts, and Georgia courts have let that exclusion defeat a negligent supervision claim against the parents when the injury arose out of an assault. Jefferson Insurance Co. v. Dunn, 269 Ga. 213 (1998). The exact policy wording controls. Get the policy before you count on it.
The school. At a private school, this is usually the defendant who matters. The school took charge of your child. It owes reasonable care commensurate with the foreseeable risk. Georgia courts measure foreseeability by what the school knew about this child’s propensity for this kind of harm. In Doe v. YWCA of Greater Atlanta, 321 Ga. App. 403 (2013), the earlier incidents did not match the harm that happened, and the claim failed. That tells you where the case is won: in the record of what the school was told before your child was hurt.
Georgia’s anti-bullying statute, O.C.G.A. § 20-2-751.4, binds local boards of education, not private schools. Most private schools have their own anti-bullying policy in the handbook anyway. That policy is the school’s own statement of what reasonable care looks like. Did it follow its policy when your emails came in?
If the bullying was sexual and the school receives federal funds, Title IX may also apply. The leading case on student-on-student harassment, Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999), came out of a Georgia school.
Heat illness and cardiac events: the sequel to Return to Play
At a private school, the question is whether the coach used reasonable care, and these written rules are the best evidence of what a reasonable coach knew to do.
In 2013 I wrote about Georgia’s Return to Play Act and concussions. That law binds private schools by name: every “nonpublic school” must adopt a concussion policy. Heat and the heart are the next chapter, and Georgia has written rules for both.
Heat. Since 2012, the Georgia High School Association has required member schools to follow a written heat and humidity policy, now GHSA Bylaw 2.67. Coaches must take Wet Bulb Globe Temperature readings before and during practice. As the reading rises, practice gets shorter, pads come off, and breaks get longer. Above 92, there is no outdoor practice at all. Above 86, cold immersion tubs must be on hand, and the rule is “cool first, transport second.” Football players get a five-day acclimatization period before full gear. The Georgia Independent Athletic Association, which many private schools play in, has a comparable policy with the same temperature tiers and its own cold-tub rule.
The heart. In 2019 Georgia passed the Jeremy Nelson and Nick Blakely Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act (Senate Bill 60). It covers public and private schools with any of grades 6 through 12. Schools must give students and parents an information sheet, hold informational meetings twice a year, and train coaches every year. A student who faints must be removed from play. A student removed for warning signs cannot return without written clearance from a health care provider. Georgia’s 2024 law requiring defibrillators and cardiac emergency plans in schools covers public schools only. If your child plays at a private school, ask whether there is an AED and who on staff can use it.
Both the Return to Play Act and the cardiac statute say they do not themselves create a cause of action. That is not the same as immunity. At a public school, a coach can argue that every judgment call on the field was discretionary. At a private school, the question is whether the coach used reasonable care, and these written rules are the best evidence of what a reasonable coach knew to do. A coach who never took a WBGT reading, kept pads on at 90, had no cold tub, or sent a student who had fainted back into practice has a lot to explain.
School bus stops: the loading zone is where the duty is clearest
O.C.G.A. § 40-6-164 says a driver who stops to let children off may not move the bus until all children who need to cross the roadway have done so safely.
I have written about school bus crashes. Most children killed in school-bus-related incidents are not passengers in a crash. They are pedestrians, getting on or off.
Many private schools run their own buses or hire a contractor. The rules of the road do not care who owns the bus. Under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-163, drivers must stop for a school bus that is loading or unloading with its signals on, and the definition of “school bus” is not limited to public schools. In 2024 Georgia passed Addy’s Law, named for Addy Pierce, a Henry County child killed that year. Passing a stopped school bus is now a high and aggravated misdemeanor with a fine of at least $1,000.
The bus driver’s duty is just as plain. O.C.G.A. § 40-6-164 says a driver who stops to let children off may not move the bus until all children who need to cross the roadway have done so safely. Georgia courts have long said that school bus operators are carriers of passengers who must use extraordinary care, the highest standard in our law. Eason v. Crews, 88 Ga. App. 602 (1953).
Even at a public school, the courts have treated unloading a child and getting the child to a place of safety as part of operating the bus, so the bus insurance can answer for it. Roberts v. Burke County School District, 267 Ga. 665 (1997). At a private school or with a private contractor there is no immunity to get around in the first place. If your child was struck at the stop, find out where the bus was, whether the stop arm and lights were out, whether the driver watched the crossing, and who chose that stop.
What I tell private school parents to do
Get the enrollment contract, the athletic packet, and the handbook. Gather every email, text, and note you sent the school before the injury. Protect both claims inside the ordinary two years.
Get the enrollment contract, the athletic packet, and the handbook. Find every page with “release,” “waiver,” “indemnify,” or “arbitration” on it.
Gather every email, text, and note you sent the school before the injury. In a bullying case, that paper trail is the case.
Ask, in writing, for the school to preserve video, incident reports, heat logs, and bus records. Video gets recorded over.
Protect both claims inside the ordinary two years. Your child’s claim may be tolled. Your claim for the medical bills is not.
A private school does not get the wall a public school gets. It still has lawyers, and it still has insurance. Families who move quickly, while the facts are fresh, give their child the best chance.
Attorney Pete Pearson has practiced personal injury law in Georgia since 1996. He has a special interest in helping families of injured children. He is a father of ten and lives with his wife and children in Newborn, Georgia.
If you need to talk, my direct line is Six-Seven-Eight 358-2564, or email pete@petepearsonlaw.com.