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Compliance for schools
We protect the school so that it can, and knows how to, protect its pupils.
The slate of the classic classroom stands for what Santana Lorenzo Abogados offers a school: calm and precision.
«The answer has to be written down before the phone rings.»
On an ordinary morning, a family calls the head’s office: a video humiliating their son is circulating in the class chat groups, or an intimate photo of their daughter has already been seen by half the year group. From that moment the school has hours to decide what to do with the phones, whom to interview, whom to inform and how to protect the victim. Every one of those questions has an answer. The difference between a school that protects and one that improvises is whether that answer was written down before the phone rang.
The questions that reach the head’s office
Can the school take a phone away? Can it look at what is on it? How do you interview a pupil without infringing their rights? Must the school report it even if the parents object? Should the victim or the aggressor change class? These are legal questions, not only educational ones, and a wrong answer can turn the school into part of the problem. A compliance programme settles them in advance: who triggers the protocol, what a tutor may and may not do, whom to call, how it is documented and how to talk to the families.
Why it is a legal matter
When something happens at a school, sooner or later the head’s office is asked who pays. Depending on who causes the harm and how the claim is brought, a school in Spain can be civilly liable in three different ways, and criminally liable as an organisation.
Direct civil liability
The owner of a non-university school is directly liable for harm caused by its pupils under eighteen while under the control or supervision of teaching staff, in school, extracurricular or complementary activities, and for harm caused by its employees in the course of their duties (article 1903 of the Spanish Civil Code). The injured party can claim directly against the school. Liability is avoided only by proving that every due care was taken to prevent the harm, which is why a written protocol, actually applied, is the school’s best defence.
Secondary civil liability
When a teacher, instructor or any other employee commits an offence in the course of their work, the school pays the victim’s compensation if the convicted person does not (article 120.4 of the Spanish Criminal Code). The same applies when the offence is committed on its premises and is linked to a breach of rules the school was bound to observe (article 120.3). In offences involving minors, those awards tend to be very high.
Joint and several civil liability
If the school itself is convicted as a legal person, it is jointly and severally liable for compensation together with the individuals convicted of the same acts (article 116.3 of the Criminal Code). And when the offence is committed by a pupil under eighteen, the school may be jointly and severally liable with that pupil if it is regarded as the pupil’s de facto guardian while in its care (article 61.3 of Organic Law 5/2000 on the criminal liability of minors). In both cases the victim may claim the full amount from any of those liable, including the school.
Criminal liability
The school, as an organisation, can be convicted of certain offences committed by its managers or employees (article 31 bis of the Criminal Code). Only an adequate and effective prevention model can exempt it from that liability or mitigate it.
On top of this come two legal obligations. Organic Law 8/2021 on the protection of children and adolescents (LOPIVI) requires action protocols and a wellbeing and protection coordinator in every school with pupils under eighteen. And Law 2/2023 requires schools with fifty or more employees to have an internal reporting channel.
What we do
Risk map and prevention model
A map of the school’s criminal risks and a crime-prevention model tailored to it.
Action protocols
Bullying, cyberbullying, sharing of images and violence, aligned with the rules of each Spanish region.
Internal reporting channel
In line with Law 2/2023, with its compliance body.
Wellbeing and protection coordinator
Legal support in the exercise of the role.
Training
For leadership teams, teachers and non-teaching staff.
When it happens
Immediate assistance: internal investigation, reporting to the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office or the police, and dealing with families.
We work with schools throughout Spain, from nursery schools to universities.
Partners of CICAE
Santana Lorenzo Abogados is part of the network of strategic partners of CICAE, the Spanish Association of Private and Independent Schools, with which it signed a framework collaboration agreement in 2025, to advise its member schools and implement compliance in them, adding value to the educational community.
Let’s talk
Would your school know, tomorrow at nine, what to do with a phone, a pupil and a worried family on the line? First meeting at our offices or by video call.