But until the first principal is tried in a New Zealand court, uncertainty will surround the extent to which principals will be liable if an accident occurs on school grounds.
Harrison Stone partner Richard Harrison, of Auckland, spoke to Otago and Southland secondary school principals in Wanaka late last month, to advise them on the impacts of the Government's health and safety legislation reforms, which will come into force in April next year.
He said the main concern raised by principals at the event was whether they could be held personally liable for school accidents under the new legislation.
''It's not entirely clear, but the view of those working in the area seems to be that they are captured, as officers of an organisation.
''They [principals] have liability to undertake a due diligence.
''That means they are an officer [the CEO] that is responsible for the safety of staff and those that are on the work site - which is a school or wherever a school might be operating - and is responsible for undertaking due diligence to make sure that there's compliance with the Act.''
Principals would be expected to have a health and safety officer and committee to make sure a plan was in place that minimised the risk to the welfare and safety of staff and pupils, he said.
''A principal who didn't ensure that a health and safety committee with a health and safety officer was put in place, would be liable. That would be at the extreme end.
''If a health and safety plan was in place and the school was complying in that respect, but a kid still went ahead and had a swing and went far too high and fell off and broke their arm, you wouldn't see liability for that,'' he believed.
School pools were a cause for concern for many principals, in terms of how to stop people using them at night or over the weekend and drowning.
''It's an identifiable risk. Reasonable steps to eliminate that risk would be a health and safety person making sure that risk was minimised by implementing security steps - like locking the pool, making sure that only certain people have access to it.''
He believed principals would not be liable for a pool death if those steps had been taken.
''But I'm only making this up, because someone's going to be a test case, and until we know how a court would see what level of detail that you would go into for that due diligence, we don't know how far a principal has to go to make sure they've complied with their due diligence obligation.
''That's the bit we don't know yet, and that's the worry for principals.''
A wider concern was the amount of time principals would lose in their day doing compliance paper work.
The other ''contentious issue'' was would schools stop doing some activities if they felt there was too much risk involved and they did not have enough control over them.
The common area of concern among principals was outdoor education, such as school camps, school trips (be they overseas or geography field trips), recreational trips and sports trips, he said.
''It certainly will impact on the delivery of education and what's available in New Zealand.
''The big question mark is around what impact it will have on schools doing extra-curricular activities, which all form an important part of the education process.
''How much of those activities will be curtailed? There's a suggestion already that principals are starting to curtail them.
''We've seen some of the tragedies in the past. Particularly when you don't have a lot of control over a situation, you might just say it's better not to do it, because there is an inherent risk in it and we're not going to be able to eliminate that risk.''
Otago Secondary Principals' Association president Wayne Bosley said Mr Harrison's address was very useful, and principals across the region were eagerly awaiting Ministry of Education advice on the issue.
