Uncategorized

Safety Law News for August 12, 2024

by  • 

— In Louisiana, the Court of Appeal of Louisiana, affirmed the liability of school officials for “having actual knowledge of the actions of (a student) toward multiple students, and their failure to take the appropriate disciplinary actions.”  The case involves a student who “was sexually molested by (another student) on the school bus. This happened on numerous occasions while riding the school bus … as well as on school property.”  The appellate court agreed with the lower court that “the correct standard of liability regarding the liability of a school board for the actions of its students (is one of) a duty of reasonable supervision over students.”  In practical terms this standard is a basis for liability when there is “proof of negligence in providing supervision and also proof of a causal connection between the lack of supervision and the accident.”  Foreseeability is a dispositive component for liability such that “before a school board can be found to have breached the duty to adequately supervise the safety of students, the risk of unreasonable injury must be foreseeable, constructively or actually known, and preventable if a requisite degree of supervision had been exercised.”  Affirming the finding of liability was supported by the facts that “following two incidents where the authorities could have recommended expulsion and it could be argued that expulsion was mandatory on those offenses, (the student) went on to assault two more students to which (school officials) again did not follow the (school policy).” Travasos v. Lafayette Parish School Board

— In Florida, “Broward public schools apologized for the chaos on the first day of school caused by metal detectors that created delays as hundreds of high school students were left standing in 85 degree weather waiting to enter schools… Metal detectors were installed in all 32 of Broward’s high schools this year as a safety measure.”

— In Oklahoma, “officials from Oklahoma City Public Schools are asking parents to get their children ready for school by knowing the basics, including their bus route and who to call in an emergency.”

— Nationally, a survey of community preferences on school safety by Eagle Eye Networks discloses that “96% of parents want schools to share security camera feeds with police during emergencies.”  The survey, of 1,034 K-12 parents in the United States, was conducted between May 26 and June 5, 2024.  “More than half (56%) of the more than 1,000 parents of K-12 students who were surveyed said they prefer a federal camera-sharing mandate, while 29% wanted a community-level requirement, and 11% favored a district mandate. Additionally, taxes to pay for school camera sharing has bipartisan support, with 93% of Democrats and 91% of Republicans saying they support such a tax.”

Uncategorized

Safety Law News for August 6, 2024

by  • 

— In South Carolina, the United States District Court ruled that the failure to train a school resource officer is a proper basis for “deliberate indifference” liability for a school district and sheriff’s office.  The lawsuit arose out of an incident in which a  sheriff’s deputy, who ““was not the normal school resource officer,” confronted a “special needs eight-year-old minor,” who had left the classroom.  While sitting in a common area of the school, the sheriff’s deputy was accused of taking “aggressive action” and “dragged the minor into the principal’s office and wrestled with the eight-year-old minor for over thirty minutes, causing bruising to the minor’s body, physical pain, and mental trauma.”  The dispositive allegation in the case was that the substitute officer “received no training on how to interact with students nor special needs students and he had no experience being a school resource officer.”  The court ruled that the case should not be dismissed because the “need to train school resource officers on the proper handling and restraint of special needs students was plainly obvious, and the risk of not training the officers was realized as alleged by the injuries sustained in the Complaint.” 

Lauren Albright v. Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office – Magistrates Opinion

Lauren Albright v. Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office – Court Opinion

— In Utah, Utah lawmakers have set aside $72 million for school safety upgrades.  Schools must apply for the funding after completing a “safety assessment” to determine their needs.  “Allowable costs included infrastructure improvements, cameras, security personnel, lighting, locks and other safety measures. Schools have until June 2026 to exhaust their awards.”

— In Ohio, lawmakers have enacted the Ohio Childhood Safety Act.  Among the provisions of the law are new “safety requirements for interior and exterior doors, along with requiring annual inspections.”  “The law will require doors to be designed to resist forced entry, making it easy to leave and hard to get in. It would also implement new standards for alarmed locks, door hinges, and seals to also prevent fires from spreading.”

— In Florida, when the school year starts next week, Pembroke Pines elementary and middle schools will have armed guardians providing security instead of school resource officers because of a dispute with the school district.  School officials believe that “it’s losing more than $2 million with that deal, so the district will provide the cheaper alternative for the elementary and middle schools.”

Uncategorized

Safety Law News for August 2, 2024

by  • 

— In Missouri, the United States District Court dismissed the claims of a parent who brought suit against a school district, campus administrators, and law enforcement who constrained his protests of school traffic control policies.  The case arose in a series of incidents when, while picking up his children, the parent observed the school blocking access to one campus lot to allow the school buses to “leave the property before student drivers were released.”  Believing that this policy violated student rights, the disagreement evolved until the parent, “using profanities and obscenities (declared) that what they were doing was illegal and that he intended to pursue legal action to enjoin their conduct.”  (The parent) also threatened to stand in front of the school buses to prevent them from leaving, and he challenged (law enforcement) to arrest him.”  Instead, school officials obtained an ex parte order of protection against the parent.  The school board also banned the parent from school property for 365 days.  The court observed that “the conduct for which (the educators) instituted the ban is not protected under the First Amendment.”  First the court held that “public schools…are non-public forums unless school authorities open the facilities for general use by the public.”  Second, the court held that, “regardless of the public or non-public nature of the forum, true threats’ of violence is an historically unprotected category of communications.”… (T)he facts alleged…how that (the parent) made a true threat that he would commit a violent act against (law enforcement) and possibly others on school property.”  Therefore, “in view of the context and environment within which (the parent) made his statements and his aggressive behavior while making them, a reasonable person receiving or witnessing the statements would interpret them as a serious threat of violence, subjecting them to fear of violence or injury. The statements, therefore, are not protected by the First Amendment.”  Gaines v. Windsor C-1 School Board

— In Tennessee, school resource officers will be in every Metro Nashville middle and high school.  “There are plans to staff five more elementary schools with SROs in the fall. Officers can volunteer to be present on elementary campuses during the day, and be paid overtime.”

— In Washington, D.C., the Department of Homeland Security announced the inaugural members of the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse External Advisory Board, a group of school safety experts and education leaders that will provide advice and recommendations on practical ways to enhance K-12 school safety and security.

— In Texas, the Texas Education Agency is launching the Sentinel program that “helps districts identify, assess and mitigate risks to students and staff.”  Created with input from  30 superintendents, the system is “equipped with a mass communication feature that can transfer information out when emergencies happen.”

Uncategorized

Safety Law News for July 25, 2024

by  • 

— In New York, the Supreme Court, Appellate Division reversed the dismissal of a case bought by parents of  student who “was repeatedly sexually abused by a teacher while attending an elementary school.”  The parents alleged that the school, “negligently failed to prevent the abuse.”  The lower court dismissed the claim of the parents, holding that the school “did not have actual or constructive notice of the teacher’s alleged propensity to engage in sexual abuse or of the abuse that the teacher allegedly perpetrated.”  The appellate court reversed, sending the case on to a jury for trial.  The standard for determining liability is whether the school knew or should have known of the employee’s propensity for the conduct which caused the injury…(and whether) the school’s supervision and protection (is comparable) to that of a parent of ordinary prudence placed in the same situation and armed with the same information.”  The appellate court ruled that a jury must sort out these issues, particularly “given the frequency of the alleged abuse, which occurred over the entirety of a school year, and always occurred inside the same classroom during the school day.”  At trial, the school will be given the opportunity to “demonstrate, prima facie, that their supervision of both the teacher and the (student) was not negligent.”  Sayegh v. City of Yonkers

— In Texas, the “former school police officer who was part of the slow law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of failing to take action as a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers inside a fourth-grade classroom.  The officer “responded to the scene but then waited more than 70 minutes to confront the shooter inside the school.”

— In Oregon,  a member of the Medford School Board is concerned that on the issue of campus safety “there’s a breakdown of trust in our community.”  Specifically, the board member believes that, “the district could do more to better track troublesome students and to take prevention more seriously.”  Data show that recently, “four firearms have been found at MSD” campuses.

— In Alabama, officials in Marshall County are attributing an 86 percent decrease in vape confiscation to a district-wide policy.  Under the policy, students “caught with vapes automatically get 10 days of in-school suspension and a summons to juvenile court among other punishments depending on the number of offenses.”  Officials believe that, “students are taking note of these punishments and perhaps maybe quitting the habit altogether.”

Uncategorized

Safety Law News for July 16, 2024

by  • 

— In Massachusetts, the United States District Court refused to apply immunity to educators in a case brought by parents of a child who committed suicide after relentless bullying by fellow students.  The court refused to dismiss claims based upon (1) an unconstitutional policy to “intentionally downgrade and misclassify bullying incidents,” (2) severe and pervasive racial harassment in violation of Title VI, (3) wrongful death, (4) retaliation in violation of the Frist Amendment when the student was “suspended multiple times in retaliation for reporting incidents of bullying.”  The court ruled that under Massachusetts law immunity does not apply because of the school’s “ineffective implementation of the Safety and Supervision Plan.”  The court noted that, “the Safety and Supervision Plan was an explicit agreement between (the student, parents, and the school) with the specific aim of securing her physical and emotional safety at school. As alleged, (the school) thereafter failed to secure (the student’s) physical and emotional safety, causing her to suffer a cumulative psychological toll…Ultimately, (the school’s) inability to protect (the student) drove her to stop attending…which compounded her psychological harm, leading to her suicide.”  Finally, as to the legal duty, the court held that, “under Massachusetts law, a public school owes a duty of reasonable care to a minor child when the school has actual knowledge of a previous suicide attempt, or when the student has stated plans or intentions to commit suicide of which the school has actual knowledge; in these circumstances a second suicide attempt is foreseeable.”  Doe v. City of Northampton

— In Tennessee, the legislature has enacted a new policy on teacher safety in Senate Bill 1943.  Under the policy, all public and charter schools are required to pay employees their full salary or average pay and full benefits if they were physically assaulted on the job and unable to work as a result. There were 1,918 cases of assault and 71 cases of aggravated assault against teachers and staff during the 2022-23 school year, according to the 2024 Tennessee Safe Schools Report.

— In Iowa, the legislature approved House File 2586 which adds legal protections for armed staff in schools.  Under its provisions, the law “provides qualified immunity from criminal or civil liability for all damages incurred pursuant to the application of reasonable force.”

— In North Carolina, officials in the Iredell-Statesville Schools are adding additional resources and training to address suicide prevention.  “From the use of anonymous reporting apps to monitoring students’ search histories to providing counseling for students and their families, the district has invested significant resources to identifying at-risk students and getting them help.”

Uncategorized

Safety Law News for July 12, 2024

by  • 

— In New York, the Supreme Court, Appellate Division reversed the dismissal of an injury case, sending it back to trial on the issue of the failure of the school to properly supervise its students.  The injury occurred when the student tripped and fell on a roadway defect that abutted a curb in a public street adjacent to the school on the way to school. The lower court granted summary judgment dismissing the case because the injury occurred away from school. In reversing the lower court, the appellate court held that “schools are under a duty to adequately supervise the students in their charge and they will be held liable for foreseeable injuries proximately related to the absence of adequate supervision… A school’s duty to supervise is generally viewed as being coextensive with and concomitant to its physical custody of and control over the child, and therefore, when that custody ceases because the child has passed out of the orbit of its authority in such a way that the parent is perfectly free to reassume control over the child’s protection, the school’s custodial duty also ceases…(But) while a school has no duty to prevent injury to schoolchildren released in a safe and anticipated manner, the school breaches a duty when it releases a child without further supervision into a foreseeably hazardous setting it had a hand in creating.”  Reversal was required because a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether school operators breached duty of supervision because the roadway defect was located in area designated by school for pick-up and drop-off of children.  Levy v. City of New York

— In Virginia, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services recently announced more than $30 million in grants and matching funds to support school security and school resource officers.

— In North Carolina, the Pitt County School Board unanimously approved the emergency use of naloxone in schools.  “The latest statistics show that between 2021 and 2022, Pitt County saw a steep increase in overall overdose deaths, increasing more than 65% during that time period.”

— In Alabama, “Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced the opening of the application process for the 2024 Alabama Safe Schools Initiative Awards. This award program aims to identify and recognize excellence and current trends in school safety across the state.”