This article reviews some of the First Amendment issues that school boards and their legal counsel often encounter during a school board meeting. The discussion necessarily begins with a brief review of the public forum doctrine, under which is included the traditional public forum, the designated public forum, and the nonpublic forum. The article…

As public agencies created by State legislative mandate, school districts and the officers thereof are obligated to abide by several provisions of the United States Constitution. School boards can reduce many of the sources of current student unrest by complying with these provisions. Courts have held that under the Fourteenth Amendment school…