PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Gavels & Gowns - What’s Next in VA K-12 Education? An Interview with Scott Brabrand, Executive Director of VASS
Serving the Diverse Needs of Children through Education Law: On Record PR
Orange County Board of Education Meeting Discusses Program for Homeless Youth and Foster Youth of Orange County
The Transformation of Education in Florida
School District Update Podcast: Hiring H-1B Teachers in 2021-2022
Employment Law Now V-96- LOTS of Big Employment Law Developments
Top 10 Actions (or Inactions), that Spur Special Education Impartial Hearing Requests for School Districts
A Moment of Simple Justice - Vaccines
Jason Maloni on Schools and Education
In the days just before the August 1, 2024 implementation deadline, a flurry of judicial activity changed the landscape of new Title IX regulation implementation yet again. ...more
Welcome to the third issue of The Academic Advisor for 2024. In this edition, we examine the following topics of import for schools, institutions of higher education, and other education-focused organizations: -...more
In 2022, state and local governments banned 2,571 different books. This is more books than were subject to such bans in the previous three years combined (2,436). Most of these efforts are taken at the local level. Texas’...more
Pennsylvania’s Educator Discipline Act governs educator misconduct complaints filed with the Department of Education for investigation and, if warranted, discipline. 24 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 2070.9. Once a misconduct complaint is...more
The decision of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Satanic Temple, Inc. v. Saucon Valley School District, ___ F.Supp.3d ___, 2023 WL 3182934, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75001 (May 1, 2023) is a...more
Last week the City Council had an eventful return from summer recess, unanimously voting to override a mayoral veto on cannabis legislation, allowing for recreational marijuana sales at existing medical marijuana facilities....more
Public school districts across the country face an October 1 deadline to certify they do not prevent constitutionally protected prayer — or else they could lose federal funding. The certification is an annual exercise,...more
Districts should be aware of a growing trend of “First Amendment Audits” occurring in district offices and schools. During an “audit,” an individual (or group) enters a school district lobby, begins filming and then posts...more
The School Board expelled two students, Epple and Chen, after their violent and racist Instagram posts about classmates circulated around their high school. The students challenged the school board’s ability to discipline...more
As a new wave of book banning appears to be to be sweeping the nation, public school libraries are relying on a 1982 plurality opinion for guidance and coming up with more questions than answers. Pico, in which the United...more
Win in Court doesn’t Assure More Pennsylvania School Funding - “Pennsylvania is the latest state where the public school funding system was found to be unconstitutional, but the experience in other states suggests there’s...more
As anticipated, the Ninth Circuit has waded back into the choppy waters of student online and off-campus speech following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2021 ruling in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L and found that a...more
This week, the Court considers when the First Amendment limits the ability to discipline students for private off-campus speech. The Court holds that a public school may, consistent with the First Amendment, discipline...more
In re Appeal of G.S., 269 A.3d 718, 722 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2022), appeal denied, 61 MAL 2022, 2022 WL 2447538 (Pa. July 6, 2022) (The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court determined that the expulsion of a student for a social media...more
On August 18, 2022, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker issued a preliminary injunction blocking part of Florida’s House Bill (H.B.) 7, known as the Individual Freedom Act (IFA), which prohibits employers from requiring...more
Historically, the ability of a governmental conduit issuer to issue bonds to facilitate a financing for a religious organization or a religiously affiliated school, university, senior housing facility or other nonprofit...more
The United States Supreme Court holding in Carson v. Makin could result in public assistance for religiously affiliated institutions of higher education. The Court ruled that Maine’s tuition assistance program is an...more
The SCOTUS recently ruled in favor of a public high school football coach who lost his job after praying in front of students at the 50-yard line following the school’s football games. The Court held that the coach did not...more
I’m currently in the wilds of Alaska, learning about the training of sled dogs. Nevertheless, word of the Supreme Court’s five most recent decisions has traveled northward. While none of these decisions is earthshaking, they...more
In J.S. by M.S. v. Manheim Township School District, 263 A.3d 295 (Pa. 2021), Pennsylvania’s highest court took a step toward clarifying the sticky issue of school districts’ ability to discipline students for off-campus...more
On June 21, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Carson ex rel. O.C. v. Makin, No. 20-1088, holding that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prohibits a state from imposing a nonsectarian requirement to receive...more
Escalated tension, dissention, disagreement have been the new normal for school district and community college boards throughout the country. Censures and reprimands, once a little used arrow in the quiver of boards, have...more
McNett v. Jefferson-Morgan Sch. Dist., 2:21-CV-01064-RJC, 2021 WL 5505849, at *1 (W.D. Pa. Nov. 23, 2021) (A parent’s challenge to being banned from school events for disruptive behavior found not to have violated his...more
In 2019, we reported on the case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District involving a football coach at Bremerton High School in Washington state who was placed on administrative leave by his public school district for praying...more
Many students are generally familiar with the First Amendment of the Constitution, but they often overlook that it only confers the right “to petition the Government for a redress of such grievances.” As a result, only...more