Restraints and other aversives continue to be an active area of legal activity, particularly for students with disabilities. The March/April 2016 issue of Communiqué provided an update of the case law specific to school district use of restraints (Zirkel, 2016). Since then, various sources have provided successive snapshots of state restraint and…

Madeline Smith, a new elementary principal in northeastern Pennsylvania, wrestles with how to handle a dilemma involving one of her special education teachers who is wearing a head wrap while working. Wearing the head wrap is a violation of district policy, and if the head wrap is a religious symbol, then the employee is also violating the state…

In a case involving a principal terminated after deciding to home-school his children, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district's $300,000 settlement favoring plaintiff. School employees desiring to enroll their children in nonpublic school settings should consider whether their district has a school patronage policy requiring…

In late October 2000, Franklin Scott and Nicholas Thomas, 11th-graders at a high school in Alachua County, Florida, each displayed a Confederate flag on campus. Scott did so on his pickup truck, and Thomas did so on his T-shirt. The principal, Lamar Simmons, had given each of them a warning when they had engaged in such conduct earlier in the…

In 1982 in "Lubbock Civil Liberties Union v. Lubbock Independent School District," the Fifth Circuit Court ruled unconstitutional a school policy allowing meetings after school hours for moral, religious, or ethical purposes. Federal courts have struck down other similar policies. (Author/JM)

A complex case involving a disgruntled ex-employee's invasion of a college president's e-mail system resulted in a decision granting two plaintiffs' motions for summary judgment. This was the first recorded education-related collision on the electronic superhighway. Every educational institution should have a policy and procedure regarding what…

By upholding a student's refusal to provide a urine sample, the Seventh Circuit Court correctly avoided further erosion of the Fourth Amendment's privacy principle. In "New Jersey v T.L.O." (1995), the U.S. Supreme Court shrunk the probable-cause standard to reasonable suspicion in the special context of public schools, retaining the…

The Massachusetts Supreme Court overturned a lower court's ruling against a speech pathology teacher whose contract was not renewed following a parent's complaint. The teacher had explained 4-letter words to 13 year-olds, bringing them up in class, then discouraged further usage. Judges decided the teacher had acted creatively in response to…

The 11th Circuit Court upheld a Georgia district's termination of an exemplary teacher who refused an immediate drug test after a police dog sniffed out a marijuana cigarette in her unlocked car. This case illustrates application of zero-tolerance policies to teachers and other personnel despite employees' signed contracts. (MLH)

A mother in rural Illinois who demonstrated against a dress-code policy at a school board meeting by brandishing a toy gun was banned from future school activities and filed suit. Courts upheld the board's policy of imposing reasonable restrictions on time, place, and manner of free speech. (MLH)

Since 1990, there have been at least six published court decisions concerning teachers' use of controversial videos in public schools. A relevant district policy led the Colorado Supreme Court to uphold a teacher's termination for showing 12th graders an R-rated 1900 Bertolucci film on fascism. Implications are discussed. (MLH)