Articles tagged with lawsuits

Strange but true, tales from school

649px-Tumbler_Snapper_rope_tricksIt’s always so much fun to read the “News of the Weird” columns and hear about the stories that are so strange you can’t make it up. A bit geekier, but just as entertaining, is ASBJ Legal Columnist Edwin C. Darden’s take on the strangest lawsuits and legal situations of the year. Always good for a laugh or at least an eye-roll—as long as it’s not your district, Darden points out.

This year’s contenders include a 17-year-old high school wrestler who was charged with misdemeanor sexual battery for performing a maneuver called the “butt drag” on a younger student who he allegedly liked to bully.

Several others were the works of teachers, including the work of a new art teacher who penned “Thoughts from a Former Craigslist Sex Worker,” for the Huffington Post, describing how she earned money as a graduate student by advertising in the “erotic services” section of Craigslist.
(more…)

Naomi Dillon|June 28th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, NSBA Publications, School Law|Tags: , , |

A good lawyer needed in bad economy

A little over a week ago, I was in sunny California; topping 80 degrees, I almost forgot it was winter until I returned to the Washington D.C. area and it’s single-digit weather. What a rude awakening!

Not as rude of an awakening, however, as many of the school districts are having in the Golden State, thanks to its plummeting economy, which was the reason I was out west in the first place. With one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, a housing bubble market that has seen the largest bust, and the foreclosure rates to prove it, California is among the worst affected by the economic downturn.

And education is definitely feeling the effects. Gov. Schwarzenneger has proposed cutting $2.1 billion from schools in the middle of this year and another $3.1 billion from education in the 2009-2010 school year. Ouch!

But as districts begin the torturous process of cutting “extras”, laying off employees, and finally eliminating whole programs or shuttering schools, officials must worry about another unpleasantry: lawsuits.

While I was in California, I visited the Capistrano Unified School District in the southern part of Orange County. There are a lot of good people there, trying to do good things on a shrinking budget. It, like other school districts, are trying to figure out how to continue providing a quality education, even as its budget continues to get smaller and smaller, while operating costs continue to rise. Naturally, they have had to cut and reduce many services— they cut their bus routes by more than half, for example.
(more…)

Naomi Dillon|January 23rd, 2009|Categories: American School Board Journal, Student Achievement|Tags: , , , |
Page 1 of 11