Ohio Legislature Considers Flurry of Bills in an Attempt to Ease Burden of Harsh Winter on Schools
The Ohio House of Representatives and Ohio Senate are both considering bills to ease the burden on Ohio school districts that have taken an unusual number of calamity days this school year due to harsh winter conditions. One of the pending bills, House Bill 416, was...
ODE Temporarily Permits Submission of Online Make-up Plans for 2013-2014
The Ohio Department of Education recently announced that it will temporarily lift the August 1st deadline for submission of online calamity day make-up plans to assist school districts that have experienced a high number of weather-related closings this school year....
HR Compliance for 2014
Even with the plethora of snow days in Ohio this month, it is officially 2014. A variety of items in health care and minimum wage have changed. Ensure your district is compliant with these regulation updates in health care and minimum wage. As of January 1, 2014:...
Unilateral Implementation of Teacher Evaluation Policy Permissible
The State Employment Relations Board (SERB) upheld the clear and unambiguous language of R.C. §3319.111, holding that school districts may implement a new teacher evaluation policy in line with OTES without negotiating with their teachers association when the...
New Year’s Resolution for Special Education
It is probably not high on your list of New Year’s Resolution priorities, but special education staff at Ohio public schools should add this one: Send even more prior written notice forms. For over a year, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) had been floating the...
No requirement to create wheelchair basketball leagues
The federal Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” on January 25, 2013, that seemed to require school districts to offer alternative sports options for children with disabilities. OCR is charged with enforcing Section 504, among other laws. ...
Ohio Supreme Court Upholds Termination of Religious Science Teacher For Insubordination
On November 19, 2013, the Ohio Supreme Court concluded that, pursuant to R.C. 3319.16, acts of insubordination constitute “good and just cause” to terminate a teacher’s contract as long as the underlying rules or directives violated were themselves reasonable and...
There Are No “Slam Dunks” When Terminating Teachers
The Strasburg-Franklin Local School District provided its teachers with school district laptops. A teacher asked if he could take his laptop home for the summer and was told that he could but that he needed to return it by June 30th. The teacher failed to return the...
Light Duty Offers
One of the goals of the workers' compensation system is to get employees back to work as quickly and as safely as possible. One way that employers may be able to bring employees back quickly is by offering light duty work to the employee. In order to enable the...
Failure to Follow Student Release Policy Proves Costly
A California jury recently awarded a father $2,850,000 after a school district released his son to an unauthorized person who kidnapped the child and took him to Mexico. The school was aware that the student's mother had been deported to Mexico in 2010. Thereafter,...
Time’s Up! Ohio’s Public Schools Must Begin to Implement New Requirements of Budget Bill
On June 30th of this year, Ohio’s governor signed House Bill 59. Many of the non-financial provisions of HB 59 became effective on September 29th, which effectively signaled the beginning of major changes to how public schools operate in the state. A few of the more...
ODE Issues Third Grade Reading Guarantee Guidance
The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) recently published additional guidance to clarify certain provisions of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee. ODE’s guidance addresses minimum achievement levels for promotion to fourth grade, summer and midyear promotion of...
Affordable Care Act Notice to All Employees
Under the Affordable Care Act, school districts must notify all current employees by October 1, 2013, of the availability of health insurance marketplace (i.e. health insurance exchanges). After October 1, 2013, all new hires must be notified within fourteen (14) days...
No Right for Home School Participation in Extracurricular Activities…Yet
A month after Governor Kasich signed HB 59, Ohio’s two-year budget, the dust is starting to settle and certain issues are standing out as of particular concern to our clients. Over the coming days and weeks we will continue to address these issues in our blog posts...
U.S. Supreme Court Favors Employers in Two Discrimination Cases
Vance v. Ball State Univ., 11-556, 2013 WL 3155228 (U.S. June 24, 2013). Univ. of Texas Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 12-484, 2013 WL 3155234 (U.S. June 24, 2013). On Monday, June 24, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on two cases involving Title VII harassment claims....
Ohio Supreme Court Rules Mental Condition Must be Caused by Physical Injury in Order to be Compensable Under the Workers’ Compensation System
Armstrong v. John R. Jurgensen Co., Slip Opinion No. 2013-Ohio-2237. In a decision released June 4, 2013, the Ohio Supreme Court has affirmed that in order for a mental condition to be compensable under the Ohio workers’ compensation system, a compensable physical...
Tenth Circuit Upholds School “Timeout Room,” No Constitutional Violation
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver recently upheld a school district’s use of a “timeout room” to discipline and briefly restrain a developmentally disabled student with disruptive behavioral issues. The student, J.M., was five years old and was known to...
Court Held Kentucky District Conducted Unlawful Search of Student Cell Phone
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati recently ruled that administrators at a Kentucky school district conducted an unlawful search of a student’s cell phone. The student, who was enrolled as an out-of-district student in the Owensboro Public School...
Alternative to Governor’s Education Plan Introduced in Senate
Earlier this month spreadsheets were released that showed anticipated funding for each school district under Governor Kasich’s budget proposal. These revealed that a majority of districts will not experience any increase in funding. Questions have arisen regarding how...
ODE seeks input on proposed revisions to IDEA
In case you missed it, below is a notice from ODE seeking input on what it should propose for revisions to the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This should not be confused with the ongoing meetings being hosted by State Support Teams seeking input...
Jason Flatt Act Suicide Prevention Law Effective March 22, 2013
Governor John Kasich signed HB 543, also known as the “Jason Flatt Act,” into law on December 20, 2012. The bill, originally sponsored by the mother of a suicide victim, requires school districts to provide in service training in youth suicide awareness and prevention...