This Latin phrase is used by lawyers. It indicates that an individual or an institution has the rights, privileges, duties, obligations, and responsibilities of a parent.
A century or two ago, this concept was applied in relatively broad way. Schools and teachers could administer rewards and punishments as they saw fit, and instruct students on all types of moral and personal matters.
Slowly, some aspects of in loco parentis have eroded over the decades. Most public schools no longer administer corporal punishment and decline to comment on moral or religious topics.
Because public schools are extensions of the government, the concept of in loco parentis was perceived as granting the government the power to reach into people’s private sphere – a power which people did not want the government to have.
Other aspects of in loco parentis, however, are still quite in vogue. While public schools have fewer rights and privileges vis-a-vis the students, they are still held liable for duties, obligations, and responsibilities toward the students.
In fact, schools in many respects are held even more responsible and liable. Litigating schools is a popular pastime.
This shift has, therefore, left schools in a position in which they are held responsible for more, but given fewer powers with which to meet those responsibilities: an unenviable position.
The situation is different with private schools.
Because they are not part of the government, private schools are granted whichever roles parents choose to give them. Enrollment in a private school is a contract of sorts, and the understanding of the school’s role is determined by mutual agreement between the parent and the school.
Among private schools there exists, then, a broad range: from schools which have no trace of in loco parentis to schools which embody a robust understanding of in loco parentis.
Being disconnected from the government gives private schools, and parents, the freedom to explore various arrangements.
The public schools, meanwhile, labor under the burden of ever-increasing expectations regarding their duties, obligations, and responsibilities to the students, and to the parents, while having ever-fewer rights, privileges, and powers with which to fulfill those expectations.
