Some elementary school teachers are giving their students high fives in lieu of hugs.
When they see kids start to hug one another, they instruct them to do a high five instead.
Now a high five is fine, but it's not the same thing as a hug. High fives are for teammates who have just hit a home run; hugs are for kids with scraped knees or problems at home.
But what else are you going to do? There's no global warming in our schools. There's mostly fear.
Unless you've been unconscious for a year or two, you've noticed the steady line of legal cases involving teachers having sex with their students. Hugs are just one of the victims.
It's become such a common occurrence that we barely wince anymore when another case comes to light. So far in 2009, the following cases hit the news in Utah:
A former teacher's aide at West Jordan Middle School was charged with having sexual relations with 15- and 16-year-old students.
A former teacher and coach in Moab entered an "Alford plea" this fall on charges of having sex with a 14-year-old student. The teen committed suicide.
A teacher/coach at Pine View High in St. George was charged with sexual abuse of a child.
The principal of the Lone Peak High seminary program was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old student.
A Roy Junior High shop teacher was charged with having sex with a student. The charges followed two investigations by police of a Layton High choir teacher who had married a recently graduated student and an Ogden High teacher who was living with a former student.
A special-education teacher at Helper Junior High was charged for having sex with a 15-year-old student. A second teacher had already been placed on administrative leave during an investigation into possible inappropriate relations with a student.
A Bountiful Junior High teacher, a married mother of three, was sentenced to prison for having sex with a 13-year-old student. Based on information she provided, a math teacher at Bountiful Junior High was charged with having sex with the same student.
A substitute teacher in Granite School District was sentenced to three months probation for fondling a 13-year-old girl in his car.
A popular teacher and coach in Fillmore was sentenced to prison for having sex with one of his high school students.
A Dixie High teacher was charged with sexual abuse of a 7-year-old girl. He was already awaiting trial on sexual battery charges related to classroom behavior.
A Cedar City Middle School teacher was sentenced to a year in jail for videotaping females, including his students, through windows of their homes.
A West High teacher was found not guilty of illegal sexual conduct with a 16-year-old student in a much-publicized case.
It's not just Utah teachers who have transgressed; it's teachers nationwide. And it's not just men — 40 percent of such cases involve female school officials (five of the aforementioned Utah cases involve women). And it's not just teachers, it's clerics, child-care workers, Scoutmasters.
The situation has produced wide repercussions, especially for the thousands of dedicated teachers who act appropriately and want to help students.
"We're all nervous," says McKell Withers, superintendent of the Salt Lake School District.
Withers and other administrators urge teachers to take steps to avoid trouble — don't initiate text messages to kids, don't meet with them in rooms that don't have high visibility, etc.
But will the kids suffer if adults keep them at a distance? It's a fine line teachers are walking.
Leave it to Withers to sum up the situation: "We can't let nervousness scare us from helping kids in appropriate ways. Kids don't need any more voids in their lives. They need help from trusted adults. Teens spend more time with teachers than they do with their parents. It's gotten so we can't trust anyone, but if kids don't have access to adults, they go to their peers for advice, and that's where they can really get into trouble. They would rather speak to adults, and sometimes they're afraid to talk to Mom and Dad. They need a trusted adult."
Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. Please send e-mail to drob@desnews.com.