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School Safety Law News for 5/14/12

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  • Texas students claim that a riot broke out on campus — and they posted videos and pictures, taken with their cell phones, online. Educators claim that students created a prank riot and are giving the wrong impression via social media. Meanwhile, students involved in the fight are receiving suspensions and misdemeanors citations.
  • How do teachers cope with student cyber-bullies?  Secondary teachers say they don’t know how to cope with cyber-bullying that goes on outside of school hours. Schools management and teaching staff are in a legal vacuum when it comes to the growing problem of online abuse of students.
  • ‘R-word’ gets boot from students’ lingo. Members of a high school organization Project Support, comprised of students with and without special needs, got busy last month with designing T-shirts and a pledge board for people to show their support for not using the R-word.
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School Safety Law News for 5/11/12

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  • After three students posted on a “Scumbag Teachers” Tumblr page, San Francisco Unified suspended the students and banned them from graduation and prom. The school overturned its disciplinary decisions after attorneys got involved.
  • Trained drug dogs visit Minnesota high schools once or twice a month — a policy that is aimed at deterring drug use, so that students neither hide nor use illegal substances on campus.
  • California public schools are twice as likely to suspend disabled students as non-disabled students — and are three times as likely to suspend black students as white students. Educators debate whether the suspensions are merited.
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School Safety Law News for 5/10/12

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  •  Ten days after a student submitted a threatening essay, which detailed how he would conduct a school shooting, the student posted his essay on Facebook. Parents are upset that the school only notified them after the essay went online.
  • Visitors to an Indiana high school now face a double entry barrier: after they are buzzed in, their names are swiftly run through a national sex offenders database.
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School Safety Law News for 5/9/12

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  • A federal court ruled that educators can punish a student for an online rap video that harassed and possibly threatened teachers. The video was created off campus, during non-school hours, without school computers.
  • Minnesota educators are crafting policies on online student conduct, in response to a student who wrote on Facebook that she hated a hall monitor.
  • An April Fool’s Day prank left 2,500 students without bus rides, as five seniors flattened the tires of 38 school buses, and it led to five felony charges. Many students, who knew the seniors, reported their conduct.
  • After a North Carolina student received threats from an unknown text messager, educators notified both parents and police. The increased police presence on campus was a precautionary measure.
  • One student’s emotional meltdown lead to the lockdown of an entire high school in Iowa. Educators wanted to keep the hallways clear as the girl’s parents brought her home.
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School Safety Law News for 5/8/12

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  • An Indiana high school student faces possible expulsion from school after police say he brought a stun gun on campus. The teen and his mother claim he was being bullied and the school wouldn’t step in to stop the problem.
  • In California public schools, more than 40 percent of suspensions are for willful defiance or for disruptive behavior. Some critics, including at least one state legislator, say the bar for suspensions should be higher.
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School Safety Law News for 5/7/12

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  • Parents discipline their children, too: a student’s mother required him to stand outside his school with a sign, after he was suspended for planning to bully another child. His mother says the community is supporting her.
  • A New Jersey school is officially on Facebook, with a webpage that announces student accomplishments and school events. The social media website is replacing mailed school newsletters.