Education Law

The Historic Day - My Journal

Posted on November 04, 2008
Today is important. I want to share some reflections and feelings not because I think any of you will be interested in them, but that 40-50 years from now I can come back and read about what I was feeling on this day. So, I am going to be updating this thread all day with whatever I am feeling...

O'Conner on Citizenship Education

Posted on November 03, 2008
I can't help but feel slightly uncomfortable at Justice O'Conner's foray into citizenship education, which is in the blogs again. We must do a better job of educating young people to become active and informed participants in our democracy. Absolutely true...

The Times We're In

Posted on November 02, 2008
In the 06-07 school year, over 1 in 5 new schools opened in the U.S. was charter school. Still less than 5 percent of all public K-12 schools are charters, but their popularity is growing rapidly.

UCEA Reflections

Posted on November 02, 2008
Spent the weekend at UCEA. I am in the Orlando Airport right now, so I thought I would write a few reflections. Disney was not as bad as I thought it would be ... which is good because we are doing Disney (Anaheim) again next year. Ohh joy. THe hotel was not that bad, not as bad a last year...

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We Can be Creative With This Stuff!

Posted on October 31, 2008
Lots of people think of the law as a stogy old field that old men with white hair do. Well, sure. That's part of it. But, there is also an exciting, interactive and indeed even creative part of the law and I try hard to instill those creative aspects of the law in my teaching...

Letter to the Next President

Posted on October 30, 2008
Dear Mr. President, Congratulations on winning the election to the most powerful office in the most stable democracy in the world. I am sure lots of folks are going to be sending you letters about this or that particular issue they want dealt with right away...

Bong Hits

Posted on October 28, 2008
A great video on the famous Bong Hits 4 Jesus case. 

Professors Freedom to Endorse?

Posted on October 27, 2008
Apparently, at least at Indiana University, it extends within your office, but not your window or on the hallway side of your door. A campaign sign in an IU professor's office is acceptable, while a sign in the window facing outward is iffy, and a sign in the lobby of an academic building most likely is against the law, school officials said...

Friday Snippets 10/24/08 - Mad Librarians

Posted on October 24, 2008
Wow - this is highly concerning. A 16.2 million dollar hazing ruling against UT -Austin. The N.J. Senate approved the severance pay cap we have been watching lately. N.J. is also considering taking the compulsory attendance age up to 18. Arkansas has a lawsuit claiming forced transfers of students because of race...

Palin to Talk Policy on Special Needs Issues

Posted on October 23, 2008
Anyone that has been following the blog at all the past couple months will know that Jim Gerl, of the Special Education Law Blog, and I have had a bit of personal quest to get something out of the candidates on special education policy (Jim more so than me - and it was his idea to start)...

Why We Blog? Sort of, I guess.

Posted on October 21, 2008
I was really looking forward to Andrew Sullivan's Atlantic Monthly article on Why I Blog. I read it as it I was eating a piece of chocolate thinking here was someone who could articulate all my inner feelings toward blogging in one cogent article. The man has been blogging since 2000 and has an enormous audience, so I was thinking surely this is the guy to sum it all up for us...

School Violence and SROs

Posted on October 20, 2008
So, the big story today is the video out of Missouri showing a cop dragging down a student as he attempted to stop a fight in school (here is the backstory). The national cable networks picked up the story this morning. The cop is under investigation and I am not going to comment on the incident...

Too Predictable - NYC Teacher Politics Ruling

Posted on October 20, 2008
Ahh, sometimes the game is so predictable it is annoying. The NYC teacher's union political buttons case was one of those utterly predictable cases. Here was my prediction on where NYC teachers could engage in political activities. So, I like the bulletin board case and don't like the campaign button case as much...

I'm a technology hypocrite - Its my job to be.

Posted on October 18, 2008
an earlier post

Friday Snippets: 10/17/08: No Tattoos!

Posted on October 17, 2008
Lots of stuff this week, so let's get started: The administrator retirement caps issue in New Jersey hits formal hearings. If I were school administrators, I would watch this closely as this could be a "coming soon to a state near you" kind of issue...

Jim Gerl is Smiling

Posted on October 15, 2008
Watching the debate now and sort of following along with the liveblogs ... here is MSNBC on McCain's statements on Palin's Vice Presidential qualification that she is a special education expert: UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ON SPECIAL NEEDSFrom NBC's Domenico MontanaroMcCain mentioned that Palin knows more about the issue of autism than nearly anyone...

California School Funding in Plain English

Posted on October 14, 2008
Here is something interesting. The CommonCraft couple have created one of their "In Plain English" videos about school funding in California. You know their work: Blogs, Wikis, Social Networking, Podcasting, Photosharing, Twitter, and lots more. They are very well known in the Web 2...

From Teaching to Law School

Posted on October 13, 2008
I sort of frequently get asked about going from teaching full-time in a public school to enrolling in law school. Obviously, I did it and I know a lot about it. I always sort of feel bad telling people about being a lawyer and law school as I know that anyone brave enough to think about law school probably was a pretty decent teacher and we need to keep our good teachers in the classroom...

Politics, Teachers and Schools

Posted on October 13, 2008
I've never witnessed a more political year than this one. I was back in Illinois this weekend visiting my old school where I taught, watching my little sister get crowned homecoming attendant, going to a wedding and making applebutter (and burning my hand pretty badly - it was a crazy weekend), but politics was topic #1 on everyone's mind...

Friday Snippets 10/10/08 - The Slow Down

Posted on October 10, 2008
As if teacher pension systems were not in enough trouble ... excess executive travel too? What about borrowing against the pension funds? There is just no way this doesn't get really, really ugly. An example of how schools are contributing to the economic slowdown and how the economic slowdown can affect learning...

The E-Discovery Amendments and Electronic Technologies in Schools (Email and Local Documents)

Posted on October 09, 2008
This is the third installment in a series of posts concerning the amendments made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (the "FRCP") in 2006, most of which concerned the discovery of electronically stored information.  This installment focuses on the implications that the e-discovery amendments have on the use of email by school employees, as well as on the saving of documents on local work stations...

Revisioning the Justification for School Employee Legal Education

Posted on October 07, 2008
So, for my scholarly post for the week, I am going to talk about my democratic vision for school law. I have been teaching school law for a few years now and I have been consistently struck by the idea that we education law folks are very good at teaching our content areas such as torts and contracts (I would argue we do the best job in all of ed...

Just Fire Them All

Posted on October 06, 2008
This Mt. Vernon, Ohio teacher religion case just gets worse and worse. It has gotten so bad I am extremely surprised the lawyers for the school district even let this get to trial. If I were the school's lawyer in this case, I would settle no matter the price...

Does Yoga Violate the Establishment Clause

Posted on October 06, 2008
Here is an interesting one out of New York. Some parents there are objecting to the school's use of yoga to relieve stress before exams because it violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. What's that ... you didn't know yoga was a religious activity? That all the folks down at the local health center were really engaging in worship each morning? That all those yoga books were actually religious texts...

Friday Snippets - 10/3/08 - Officially a Resident of the Bluegrass

Posted on October 03, 2008
A quick edition this week. Spent today getting my Kentucky driver's license (which was surprisingly easy) and writing. Lots and lots of writing lately. I am realizing that more and more the professional career choice I made was ... author ... as I do more writing than just about anything else...

The E-Discovery Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and School District IT (document retention systems)

Posted on October 01, 2008
This is the second installment in a series of posts examining the effects of the amendments made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (the "FRCP") in 2006 on technology use in schools.  In the initial post, I provided a broad overview of the discovery process and the role of electronically stored information within it...

It's Banned Books Week!

Posted on September 30, 2008
Here is the American Library Association's webpage for it. Here is their page on the most frequently challenged books and authors for 2007. Toni Morrison's books come out of the top 10, but she still remains the fourth most frequently challenged author...

Short Selling

Posted on September 29, 2008
That is what I taught my high school students to do. The students had to take an accounting/resources class at the high school I taught in and under my Title I job it was my responsibility to help the struggling students. They spent a good deal of the course learning about stocks and financial markets and played a simulated stock market game that spanned three of the four months of the course...

Friday Snippets: 9/26/2008 - Interesting Times

Posted on September 26, 2008
We are sure living in some interesting times, no? Everyday lately we get word of news that would have consumed months of newscycles. Last night hearing that Washington Mutual failed ... I didn't even blink - this is old hat by now. What are we going to do next year when all this settles down again? Boy, this Chicago thing just gets more interesting all the time...

The Recent E-Discovery Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Communicative Technologies in School Districts (Intro)

Posted on September 25, 2008
Hello to all readers of The Edjurist. I want to thank my colleague, Justin Bathon, for allowing me to share my ideas as a contributor to this forum. My first set of posts is partly inspired by an online discussion (see comments) that Justin forwarded to me...

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