SB 1530 Teacher Dismissal Bill on the Move

Yesterday the California Senate passed SB 1530 (Padilla) in a 33-4 vote.  The bill will now move onto the state Assembly for review.  The bill passed the Senate without the proposed changes from Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar). 

The bill, as it stands, would significantly change the permanent teacher dismissal process.  Changes would include:

• Allowing Districts to initiate dismissals during the summer months.
• Allowing the introduction of evidence more than four years old for charges that involve sex offenses or controlled substances offenses as defined in Education Code sections 44010 and 44011, respectively.
• Hearings conducted solely by an administrative law judge ("ALJ")  for charges that involve sex offenses or controlled substance offenses.  The decision of the ALJ in these hearings would be advisory in nature and the final decision regarding the discipline would be determined by the school board.

For our earlier coverage on SB 1530 and other bills that would affect the teacher dismissal process, click here.


Meghan Covert Russell

Georgia School District Not Held Liable for Student's Suicide

This week the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled in favor of the Murray County School District on their motion for summary judgment in the case of Long v. Murray County School District.  The case has garnered national attention due to its focus on bullying.  Seventeen-year-old Tyler Lee Long ("Long"), who was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, was the victim of severe, nearly constant bullying at his Georgia high school and eventually committed suicide.  Long's parents sued the Murray County School District alleging that their failure to intervene, investigate, correct, or train employees to adequately protect Tyler from bullying constituted deliberate indifference and was the cause of his decision to take his own life.

Long was subject to numerous instances of bullying throughout his time at Murray County High School, but often these instances were not observed by school staff nor reported to school staff.  Long's parents did email school staff with concerns about their son and school officials did respond by disciplining harassers and taking measures to prevent future harm.  However, Long's parents argued that the school's response failed to adequately address and stop the bullying.

Plaintiffs also alleged that the peer-on-peer harassment violated the ADA and Section 504 and that Long was discriminated against because of his disability.  Although the Court determined that Plaintiffs could potentially show that Long was (1) disabled, (2) harassed due to a disability, (3) that the harassment denied Long equal access to education, and (4) that the appropriate school officials had actual notice of the harassment, they were unable to show that (5) the Defendant's actions rose to the level of deliberate indifference.  According to the Court, "school officials will only be deemed deliberately indifferent if their response to the harassment or lack thereof is clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances."  The Court noted that "although Plaintiffs establish that Defendants should have done more to address disability harassment, Plaintiffs fail to meet the high bar of deliberate indifference and demonstrate that Defendants' response was clearly unreasonable."  The evidence showed that the District investigated and responded to each reported incident.

Although the District was not held legally liable for Long's death, the case is an important lesson to students and staff that bullying is very real danger that deserves serious attention in our schools.  Students should be encouraged to report any instances of bullying they observe to school staff.  School officials should actively investigate any reports of bullying and appropriately discipline students.  Additionally, it should be noted that as in this case, students with disabilities are often the targets of bullying.  If students with disabilities are being bullied, the student's IEP team may want to address this in the IEP, or create a safety plan for the student.   

The ruling is available in its entirety here.

Meghan Covert Russell

US Department of Education's Labor-Management Collaboration Conference Underway

The 2012 Labor-Management Collaboration Conference, held by the US Department of Education, is currently underway in Cincinnati, Ohio.  The two-day conference encourages participating school district and state officials and union leaders to exchange ideas, share lessons, and encourage participants to engage in similar collaborative efforts when they return home.

More information is available at the US Department of Education's website, including live video of the opening and closing sessions.

Meghan Covert Russell

CASH School Facilities Leadership Academy Application Due Friday June 1

California's Coalition for Adequate School Housing ("CASH") has extended its deadline for applications for its annual School Facilities Leadership Academy ("Academy").  The Academy, now in its fifth year, is a partnership between CASH and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team ("FCMAT").  The Academy is a  year-long program based in Sacramento that provides professional training to current and future school facility leaders in areas including modernization, new construction and maintenance. 

More information regarding the program and the application process is available here.

Meghan Covert Russell

Next Generation Science Standards Available for Review and Comment

The first public draft of the Next Generation Science Standards have been released.  The draft science standards are available for review and comment through June 1, 2012.

The Next Generation Science Standards is the result of collaboration between the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve.  The Framework for K-12 Science Education was released in July 2011 and the final Next Generation Science Standards are expected to be released and ready for adoption in the fall of 2012.

To read the complete draft science standards, please visit the Next Generation Science Standards website here.

Meghan Covert Russell

Legal Alert: LAO Examines Fiscal Oversight of Schools

The California Legislative Analysts Office ("LAO") recently released a report entitled "School District Fiscal Oversight and Intervention," in which it examined the State's fiscal oversight system for school districts.  In this report, the LAO compiled fifteen predictive factors of school districts that face fiscal distress, summarized the current system for fiscal oversight and intervention, and assessed how this system is functioning.

The LAO concluded in its report that the current system of fiscal oversight has generally been effective in ensuring the fiscal health of school districts and recommends preserving the current system in order to ensure sufficient support to prevent districts from requiring intervention.  The LAO noted that "the fiscal oversight system is especially crucial during challenging fiscal times, when school districts often must deal with uncertain revenues, large state deferrals, and possible trigger reductions." 

Please see our Legal Alert here for more information.

The complete LAO report is available here.

Meghan Covert Russell

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

This week, May 7-11, marks the national Teacher Appreciation Week!

Below is an excerpt of a poem from Taylor Mali's What Teachers Make:

"You want to know what I make?"
"I make kids wonder."
"I make them question."
"I make them criticize."
"I make them apologize and mean it."
"I make them write."
"I make them read, read, read."
"I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful, and definitely beautiful over and over and
over again, until they will never misspell either one
of those words again."
"I make them show all their work in math and hide it
all on their final drafts in English."
"I make them understand that if you have the brains,
then follow your heart...and if someone ever tries to
judge you by what you make, you pay them no
attention!"
"You want to know what I make?"
"I make a difference."

What does your district do to celebrate teachers? 

One simple thing anyone can do is to Tweet Teacher Week messages using the hashtag #thankateacher. 

For more ideas on how to thank a teacher visit the National Education Association website here.

Meghan Covert Russell

Teaching Younger Students Algebra -- Yes It Can Be (And Should Be) Done!

Math is a subject that is often challenging for a lot of students, and algebra can be an especially challenging subject that raises novel questions and asks students to think in a new way.  The National Assessment of Educational Progress ("NAEP") reports that the number of students taking Algebra I in 8th grade has doubled since 1986 (from 16% to 34%).  But, although California standards call for 8th graders to take Algebra I, a 2011 EdSource report found that 1/3 of those 8th graders who took Algebra I scored "below basic" or "far below basic."

These scores raise questions about how students are prepared for algebra, and is examined in Harvard Graduate School of Education's ("HGSE") May/June 2012 Harvard Education Letter, "The Algebra Problem."  HGSE suggests that students find algebra challenging because "it is a dramatic leap to go from the concrete world of computation-focused grade school math to the abstract world of algebra, which requires work with variables and changing quantitative relationships."

Tufts University researcher Barbara Brizuela says that algebra should be introduced to students earlier than middle school.  "Kids need to develop some comfort with these tools...babies are exposed to written and spoken language, and after six years we expect them to become somewhat fluent with that.  In math, we just drop it on them like a bomb."  Brizuela's research demonstrates that students who received weekly algebra lessons plus homework in elementary school performed better than their peers on algebra assessments in middle school.  Brizuela uses children's natural generalizing ability to "lure [them] into thinking about quantitative relationships that then become algebraic rules."  The result is that children use their natural mathematical reasoning. 

What methods have you used to teach algebraic reasoning to elementary school children?

The full HGSE May/June 2012 Harvard Education Letter, "The Algebra Problem," is available here.

Meghan Covert Russell