Safety Law News for 7/9/12

  • School administrators and a bus driver apparently failed to enforce an anti-bullying law, which would have better protected a fifteen-year-old bullying victim. While facts are dispute, this much is clear: on a day when this student was sexually harassed on the school bus, he finished his homework and then committed suicide.

Safety Law News for 7/6/12

  • Massachusetts educators adopted—and then quickly abandoned—voluntary student drug tests. Under the policy, when students were suspected of using drugs, they could choose to accept an oral swab test.
  • A small, poverty-filled school district is changing its students by adding behavioral mentorship to its school safety disciplinary measures.

Safety Law News for 7/2/12

  • Education Week reports: a diverse coalition including the American Association of School Administrators and the National School Boards Association has endorsed policy guidelines on bullying and free expression.
  • Some students in Lynwood, California will soon be visiting the district’s Alternative Attendance Center. The district aims to provide educational, health, and counseling services to suspended and truant students.
  • A mother filed a police report when she learned that her sixth grade son was choked and threatened during PE. Educators in the California school have taken administrative action against two of the misbehaved students.

Safety Law News for 6/28/12

  • After an assault on an elementary school bus, the Massachusetts superintendent announced that students involved were disciplined—and that students on this bus must now adhere to a seating chart.
  • A Florida student claims that educators disciplined her for reporting the bullying of a special needs student and for seeking to stop the misbehavior.
  • Colorado legislators have eased zero tolerance policies amid a general change in thinking, which disfavors such policies, while California legislators are considering nine bills on student discipline.

Safety Law News for 6/26/12

  • The Illinois Senate approved legislation that would permit police to share juvenile information with educators, when students are violent outside of school and are believed to pose an immediate threat to others.
  • As Tampa educators and SROs win student trust, middle and high school students are providing crime tips.
  • A seventh grader choked a classmate in the Decatur city square and left him unconscious. Georgia educators said they could not discipline the aggressor for his off-campus activity.