Solicitors General Insights: The Tale of Two Washingtons — Regulatory Oversight Podcast
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
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
On June 27, 2025, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. ___ (2025), holding that the Montgomery County Board of Education’s introduction of LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks into its...more
On the final day of its term, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public schools must accommodate parents’ religious objections to certain instructional materials — in this case, LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks used in elementary...more
Can a public school require students to engage with materials that conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs without offering an opt-out? In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the U.S. Supreme Court enjoined the Montgomery County public...more
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday, June 27, that a Maryland school district’s decision to mandate instruction using LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks, without offering notice or opt-outs to parents, violated the First...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which governs federal districts in the West/Northwest, recently held that a California school board member violated the First Amendment when blocking users’ ability to access...more
Detschelt v. Norwin School District 23-cv-1402 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 20, 2024). The District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania dismisses complaint filed by school director which alleged that statement issued by the...more
Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal (“Fifth DCA”) recently determined the Duval County School Board erred when it disciplined a teacher for politically-charged social media posts made in the run-up to the 2020...more
Flynn v. Big Spring Sch. Dist., No. 1:22-CV-00961, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168913, at *2 (M.D. Pa. Sep. 19, 2024) (District Court permits Plaintiffs who were regular attendants at school board meetings to move forward with...more
Social media has made it much easier to disseminate hurtful criticisms about teachers, principals, superintendents and even board of education members, and the good people of Nutmeg are no exception....more
Ohio Senate Bill 206, (SB 206) introduced in 2024, calls for students who post threatening content on social media to be punished with expulsion from school for up to 180 days. The bill defines the proposed prohibited conduct...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
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
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
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
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
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
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
As the COVID-19 pandemic lingers on, school boards across Ohio have experienced increased attendance at board meetings and related political activity. Additionally, Election Day is coming up on November 2, 2021, so districts...more
Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B. L. by and through Levy, 141 S. Ct. 2038 (2021). The United States Supreme Court holds that while schools can sometimes regulate student speech that takes place off-campus, the school district...more