Changes in Teaching Staff: Dates and Procedures
In our May issue of School Law Review, we covered important dates and procedures for teacher nonrenewal, including the required May dates for evaluations. Unless a collective bargaining agreement provides otherwise, a board of education that wishes to nonrenew a...
Ohio Supreme Court Finds School’s Backpack Search Constitutional
In a unanimous opinion, the Ohio Supreme Court has held that a school’s search of an unattended bag, and the two subsequent searches that initiated from the initial search, were constitutional. The court held that the searches served a compelling governmental interest...
Employer Sued for Workers’ Comp a Year After Employee Quit Job
The Supreme Court of Ohio recently issued an opinion in a workers’ compensation case in which an employer was sued for disability payments even after the employee had quit and moved on to another job. The employee, Norman James Jr., worked for Walmart at the time he...
New Laws Governing District Property
General Assembly Once Again Changes Rules on Disposal of Real Property In 2015 Ohio’s General Assembly enacted R.C. 3313.413. This statute added another step to the process for disposing of real property worth $10,000 or more. The statute required school districts to...
Supreme Court’s Special Education Decision
Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District On March 22 the U.S. Supreme Court published an opinion in a significant special education case. Issuing out of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado, Endrew v. Douglas poses the question of what level of...
New State Law Expands Use and Possession of Weapons on School Grounds
Senate Bill 199, which was passed during the lame duck session and signed by the governor in December, significantly expands the rights of certain individuals to possess weapons on public school grounds. State law generally prohibits an individual from conveying or...
The Biennial Budget Bill: How and When to Inform Policymakers
Every two years a new General Assembly convenes in Ohio. The General Assembly will consider hundreds of bill and even pass many of them, but none are more important to state government than the appropriations bills that make up the budget bill. The state budget cycle...
Ohio’s New Truancy Laws
Ohio House Bill 410 was signed by the governor on January 4, 2017, and takes effect on April 6, 2017. Despite its effective date, school districts are not required to implement many of the truancy provisions until the start of the 2017–2018 school year, the majority...
Supreme Court to Decide Level of Educational Benefit for Students with Disabilities
On January 11, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in one of the most significant special education cases in past three decades. In the 1982 case Board of Education v. Rowley, the Supreme Court determined that an individualized education program (IEP) must be...
Update: Lame Duck Legislation
Continuing our tour around the legislation passed in the lame duck, session, please find below a summary of recently passed legislation. After the governor signs a bill, it becomes effective 90 days later, so most of these will be effective generally in mid-March. If...
A Closer Look at “Education Deregulation” in Senate Bill 3
What happened during the lame duck session? By now, you know the legislative session has concluded. Sub. SB 3, which became a Christmas tree bill, contained a plethora of miscellaneous education provisions. The bill has been signed and will become effective mid-March....
Federal Court Blocks New FLSA Overtime Rule
A federal judge in Texas has granted a nationwide temporary injunction in response to a lawsuit filed by 21 states, including Ohio, to challenge the new Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime rule. The court agreed with the plaintiff states that the new rule could...
2018 Requirements for High School Diploma
Beginning with the class of 2018, Ohio’s graduation requirements will change. In addition to the state’s academic curriculum requirements, which have not changed, students must fulfill an additional requirement to earn their high school diploma. Students have three...
OCR Says Websites Lack 504/ADA Accommodations
Over the past year, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has shown an increased focus on public school district websites. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) require that public...
Court Weighs School’s Regulation of Off-Campus Speech
A school district’s authority to discipline a student for off-campus speech is an increasingly relevant concern today for public schools. Inappropriate or offensive speech can cause lasting injury to victims and can trigger significant community backlash and unrest....
Impacts of Updated Guidance Concerning Homeless Students from the U.S. Department of Education
In December 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reauthorized the McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youths program. Updated guidance was released by the U.S. Department of Education to help school districts understand the amendments to the...
U.S. Supreme Court Issues Order in Transgender Case, But Does It Change Anything?
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination against students on the basis of sex for schools that receive federal funding. More recently, the definition of “sex” discrimination was expanded by federal regulatory agencies. In April 2014, the...
Public Records Update: Legislation and Cases
Laws regarding public records are under scrutiny across the United States, including in Ohio. Advanced technology has brought myriad ways to communicate information to U.S. citizens, who continue to demand increased transparency. Public-records law continues to...
“Coming and Going” Rule Used to Deny Workers’ Compensation Claim
An Ohio court has denied a workers’ compensation claim by an employee who was injured in a traffic accident while traveling to obtain paintbrushes to use at a job site. The employee worked for a waterproofing company applying a special paint to newly constructed homes...
Allegations Lead to Title IX Claim against School District
A U.S. District Court in Massachusetts has allowed a legal claim against city and school administrators for peer-on-peer sexual harassment under Title IX. Several of the plaintiff’s other claims were dismissed, but the Title IX harassment claim was allowed to proceed....
Proposed Bill Aims to Reform Truancy Policy
Efforts to reform truancy policy in Ohio have resulted in House Bill 410, which would eliminate suspension or expulsion of students as a punishment for excessive absence. The bill, which was passed in the House and now awaits action in the Senate Education Committee,...