Education Legal Posts

http://www.overlawyered.com/schools/

Runs away with online chum; mom sues school

Upstate New York: "The Honeoye Central School District failed to keep a teenage student off the Internet as her parents requested, and she ran away with an 18-year-old Syracuse man she met online, the girl's mother claims in legal papers." The 15-year-old used school computers to meet Michael Macbeth, three years her elder, on MySpace; the Ontario County sheriff's office later arrested Macbeth "on charges of endangering the welfare of a child after he picked up the girl at Honeoye Central High School." Now her mother, Luann Waden of Bloomfield, has filed a notice of intent to sue, saying she had asked the school not to let her daughter use the Internet. (Gary Craig, "Mom plans to sue school over Web", Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, May 29).

Caffeine as "drug"

It's one of the premises of the anti-fizzy-drinks campaign (and presumably, after that, the anti-coffee and tea campaigns): when your kids drink Coke or Pepsi, they're ingesting (shudder) a drug. Is it being taken seriously? Well, caffeine is now turning up as a prohibited substance in school zero-tolerance policies. (van Bakel, May 26). Can suspensions for possession of Dr. Pepper be far behind?

"No one will be hurt if we get our diploma"

Updating our Feb. 22 report: "A judge Friday suspended California's high school exit exam, finding it discriminatory in a ruling that could allow thousands of students who failed the test to get their diplomas anyway." Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman "agreed with the plaintiffs that the exam discriminates against poor students and those who are learning English. 'There is evidence in the record that shows that students in economically challenged communities have not had an equal opportunity to learn the materials tested,' Freedman wrote." It would appear that from now on a high school diploma is meant to signify not a student's actual mastery of a certain body of material, but rather the mastery he or she would have attained had the breaks of life been fairer. Employers, and all others who rely on California high school diplomas in evaluating talent, would be well advised to adjust their expectations accordingly.

"Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said the state would immediately appeal the ruling, which he said creates 'chaos' for more than 1,100 high schools that are completing graduation preparations." However, plaintiff Mayra Ibanez was gratified:

"It is hard to be poor. It is hard to grow up in a place where there is a lot of crime," said the 18-year-old, a Mexican immigrant who attends school in the working-class San Francisco Bay area city of Richmond. "No one will be hurt if we get our diploma."

(Juliet Williams, "Ruling Blocks Calif. High School Exit Exam", AP/Forbes, May 12).

"Is litigation taking the 'play' out of kids' playgrounds?"

This time the dateline is Portland, Ore., where the school system has removed all swing sets from elementary school playgrounds. Another casualty: tube slides. (Susan Harding, KATU, May 8). See Jul. 18, 2005, etc.

Dad Loses Suit Alleging Abusive Coach

Chalk another one up to the judicial ref.

A judge has made it safe again for high school coaches to lose their tempers, tossing out a lawsuit that accused a coach of inflicting "emotional distress" on a softball player by calling her "a 2-year-old." (Arcadia, CA, Apr.4)

Attorney Michael Oddenino filed the lawsuit in October, alleging that Riggio yelled at his daughter when she played on the JV team last spring. He named Riggio, varsity Coach Ed Andersen and the Arcadia Unified School District in the lawsuit. He sought $3 million for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, a civil rights violation, and sex discrimination.The suit alleged that Riggio "took advantage of his position of authority to engage in an abusive pattern of excessive intimidation and humiliation of the female players, frequently calling them `idiots,' and belittling them for minor errors."

Oddenino is a family law lawyer who specializes in child custody issues. Go figure.

School choice, the special-ed way

Regarding our Mar. 24 item on demands for accommodation of special-ed students, which has touched off a considerable discussion in comments, Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog makes the important point that special ed represents one of the few sectors in which the legal system has shown itself to be open to parental demands for school choice -- unfortunately in a way that is far more expensive than ordinary school choice programs, since the amount of money that "follows the child" is left dangerously open-ended. Call it "school choice for legally savvy parents" (Mar. 29).

"Extra-special education at public expense"

The amazing industry that has sprung up to advance parents' demands that schools accommodate their "learning-disabled" offspring is an old story around these parts (see here and here, for example). Even so, the San Francisco Chronicle's recent investigative report can provoke a gasp:

* Even though federal, state and other sources already spend more than $4 billion a year to subsidize the provision of special education in the state of California, school districts in the state still shift more than a billion dollars out of their regular school budgets to pay for accommodation demands that include "private day schools, boarding schools, summer camps, aqua therapy, horseback therapy, travel costs, personal aides" and dolphin therapy.

* Administrators at Woodside High on the Peninsula offered a 15-year-old with learning disabilities and anxiety "daily help from a special education expert" as well as "a laptop computer, extra time for tests -- and an advocate to smooth any ripples with teachers. If an anxiety attack came on, he could step out of class." Not good enough for his parents, who decided to send him to a $30,000/year private school in Maine. Their lawyer demanded that the district pay not only the tuition but also for the whole family's repeated cross-country travel costs to visit him there.

* Schools routinely buckle under to demands they regard as unreasonable, not only to avoid the expense of litigation but because the law tilts against them; a single procedural misstep in the hugely complicated process can leave them liable for damages and hefty legal fees. Since secret settlements are common, taxpayers may find it hard to grasp the extent of the monetary hemorrhaging.

* "It's a blank check," said [Paul] Goldfinger, vice president of School Services. "The system is stacked so that one segment of the population -- disabled children -- has first call on funding, and the others get whatever's left."

Infuriating reading (Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 19). (& see Mar. 31 post, where comments continue).

Sexual harassment, ITOD

In The Old Days (ITOD for short) it was very unlikely that a six-year-old would draw a three-day suspension from first grade on grounds of "sexual harassment", as one just did, says Ned Crabb of the Wall Street Journal ("Schoolyard cred", OpinionJournal, Feb. 24). More: Wendy McElroy comments ("Sexual Harassment Policies Need Reform", iFeminists/Independent Institute, Feb. 17).

Teacher always liked girls better

Assisted by his lawyer dad, 17-year-old Doug Anglin, a senior at Milton High School in suburban Boston, has filed a federal civil rights complaint against his school system for, he says, systematically favoring girls and their ways:

Among Anglin's allegations: Girls face fewer restrictions from teachers, like being able to wander the hallways without passes, and girls are rewarded for abiding by the rules, while boys' more rebellious ways are punished.

Grading on homework, which sometimes includes points for decorating a notebook, also favor girls, according to Anglin's complaint, filed last month with the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

''The system is designed to the disadvantage of males," Anglin said. ''From the elementary level, they establish a philosophy that if you sit down, follow orders, and listen to what they say, you'll do well and get good grades. Men naturally rebel against this."

(Tracy Jan, "Schoolboy's bias suit", Boston Globe, Jan. 26). Although critics such as Christina Hoff Sommers have raised interesting questions about boys' underperformance in the schools, young Anglin's lawsuit gets very poor grades from Mike Sierra (Jan. 26):

[The complaint says] boys "naturally rebel." Could this naturally rebellious behavior have something to do with boys' special need for supervision in school hallways? Just a thought.

As a way to bolster male achievement (at least on paper), the Anglins recommend that we give out academic credit for playing sports and grade students on a pass/fail basis, measures that are unlikely to improve the education of any student. As far as I can tell, their only legitimate complaint concerns one teacher who gives extra points to students who decorate their writing assignments, a practice that is certainly suspect and academically insubstantial, but hardly worth clogging the courts.

"Court decision may frighten fund-raisers"

More on deep-pocket liability for crime, this time from Pennsylvania:

Reversing a lower court, the state Supreme Court ruled 4-2 Wednesday that the parents of a 10-year-old girl assaulted while selling candy for the Punxsutawney Area School District can sue the companies involved in the fund-raiser.

Lawyers on both sides of the case said the decision was likely to have a chilling effect on the wide range of for-profit businesses that help schools and other organizations raise money by sending children door to door.

A lawsuit against the school district was previously dismissed in federal court.

Attorney David Long, who represents the plaintiffs, said school districts "are begging for a lawsuit" if they continue to use such methods to raise funds....

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Ralph Cappy wrote that he believes the girl's side ultimately won't prevail. He said that the fund-raising entities did not need to warn that there "exist in the world evil people who could possibly cause intentional harm to minor students."

(Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec. 30).

No running -- this is a playground

Courtesy Matt Conigliaro (Jul. 18): swings and other fun elements are disappearing fast from South Florida playgrounds under lawyering pressure. "To say 'no running' on the playground seems crazy," says Broward County School Board member Robin Bartleman, whose own 6-year-old daughter is disappointed in the playground at Everglades Elementary in Weston. "But your feelings change when you're in a closed-door meeting with lawyers." "Play is one of children's chief vehicles for development," said University of Texas emeritus professor Joe Frost, who runs the Play and Playgrounds Research Project there. "Right now it looks like we're developing a nation of wimps." (Chris Kahn, "In the pursuit of safety, teeter-totters and swings are disappearing from playgrounds", South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jul. 18). See Sept. 8, Mar. 5, etc. More: Liz Lightfoot, "Schools 'wrap children in cotton wool'", Daily Telegraph (U.K.), May 3.