PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Gavels & Gowns - What’s Next in VA K-12 Education? An Interview with Scott Brabrand, Executive Director of VASS
Podcast: A Conversation with Andy Rotherham on Hot Topics in Education for 2023
The Transformation of Education in Florida
School District Update Podcast: Hiring H-1B Teachers in 2021-2022
COVID-19: New York Travel Guidance, Related Disability FAQs, Reopening/Operating Procedures, School District Update
They Said What? First Amendment Issues in 2020
COVID School Landscape
Education Data Privacy and Security Laws: Best Practices for School Districts
Leadership in the Time of COVID
Nota Bene Episode 90: U.S. Q3 Check In: Stimulus, Relief, Election, and Direction with Elizabeth Frazee and Jonathan Meyer
Top 10 Actions (or Inactions), that Spur Special Education Impartial Hearing Requests for School Districts
The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor has raised new considerations for districts faced with requests from parents to excuse students from instruction they believe is at odds with their religious beliefs. ...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
State legislators have introduced bills in the South Carolina House of Representatives and South Carolina Senate to amend Title 1, Chapter 1 of the South Carolina Code by adding sections addressing diversity, equity, and...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
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
On Jan. 9, 2025, the Eastern District of Kentucky held in State of Tennessee, et al. v. Miguel Cardona, et al. that the U.S. Department of Education’s 2024 Final Rule implementing Title IX is “unlawful.” This court decision...more
Last year was a turbulent one for Title IX, and although we are just a few days into 2025, this turbulence has persisted into the new year. Yesterday, January 9, 2025, a federal district court in Kentucky issued a ruling that...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
While district-controlled Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/“X” accounts can certainly be a great tool for engaging stakeholders – particularly Gen X and Millennial parents – it is important for board members and administrators...more
Yes, we are still talking about this. Despite facing what feels like a rising tide of political discourse in our communities for years, we continue to hear concerns about how schools can balance fostering academic freedom,...more
In May 2023, the Department of Education issued guidance on the current state of the law regarding constitutionally protected prayer and religious expression in public schools. Last updated in 2020, the guidance incorporates...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
A recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision held that school officials did not violate students’ First Amendment rights when disciplining them for off-campus social media posts that amounted to severe harassment...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
Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. __ (2022) (The United States Supreme Court concludes that a coach praying at mid-field following a high school football game was engaged in private religious expression...more
Welcome to our second edition of The Academic Advisor - our e-newsletter focused on education law insights. We hope you enjoyed our first issue and found it helpful. Our aim is to support the work that you do by bringing...more
The Supreme Court addressed the intersection of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Speech clauses as they relate to a public employee’s personal religious expression when done in the public eye. In a 6-to-3...more
On Monday June 27, the Supreme Court issued their ruling in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. (We previously reported on this case.) In a 6-3 decision penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the conservative majority...more
On April 25, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which we previously reported on. As you may recall, the case involves a high school football coach, Joseph Kennedy, who was...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
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
The White House recently announced two initiatives aimed at addressing perceived discrimination in education against students and institutions based on religion. We address one of those initiatives—proposed regulations aimed...more
The White House recently announced two initiatives aimed at addressing perceived discrimination in education against students and institutions based on religion. We address the first of those initiatives, relating to prayer...more
After the February 14 tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students began to organize like rarely before to protest gun violence in schools. Protests such as school walk-outs and “die-ins”...more
After the tragic February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students across the country have taken to the streets. Students have met with lawmakers, engaged in protests, and staged...more