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Safety Law News for August 29, 2024

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— In Virginia, the Court of Appeals of Virginia denied immunity for school officials after a ten year old student, getting off his school bus, was hit by a car as he was crossing the street.  The student alleged negligence on the part of the school board, claiming that the school board was “directly liable because they negligently failed to use reasonable care in the selection of bus drop off sites and procedures to keep students safe.”  Citing the changes in the underlying state laws on immunity, the appellate court reversed the lower court.  State law now “abrogates sovereign immunity for school boards when they directly own and operate school buses” or are under contract with any person to provide bus services.  Sending the case back to trial, the appellate court ruled that “whether the accident occurred as part of using the school bus is a fact-intensive inquiry.”  The appellate court also noted that “the mere fact that (the school board) may be the insured under a policy involving the school bus in question does not answer the next question of whether (the student’s) injury was due to the “ownership, maintenance, or use or operation of a vehicle.”  Hamilton v. Jackson

— In Kentucky, the Kentucky Office of the State Schools Security “released its yearly report indicating which schools across Kentucky are following statutory safety standards that were passed in 2022” in House Bill 63.  The Report documents a 99.81% compliance rate.”  Included in the policy is the requirement that every public school employ a school resource officer.

— In Washington D.C., the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has released its 2023 School Crime and Safety Report.  “The report highlights findings from 23 indicators on various school crime and safety topics.”  One key finding is that “schools reported higher incident rates of firearm possessions.”  Also,  “public school students from kindergarten to 12th grade were reported to have possessed firearms at schools (at a rate) higher than in any other school year over the previous decade.”

— In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Public Schools are “still working on plan for school resource officers 9 months after (a) state deadline.”  State policymakers increased sales taxes as part of an agreement for school officials to “have 25 school resource officers in place by January 1 (2024).”  The campus safety issue in Milwaukee is a big deal. Data show that “from August 2022 to December 2022, there were almost 1,700 calls for police to MPS schools. And those calls aren’t slowing down.” 

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Safety Law News for August 26, 2024

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— In New York, the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, refused to dismiss a case bought by parents of the child who “was sexually abused by a principal while a student.”  The pattern of abuse involved the administrator “repeatedly meeting alone with (student) behind closed doors for no articulated reason.”  The court ruled that “without actual or constructive notice of an individual’s criminal propensity, a school district may be held liable for an injury that is the reasonably foreseeable consequence of circumstances it created by its inaction.”  On this basis liability for negligent supervision, training, and negligent retention could be established upon the evidence that “the principal continued to call (the student) into his private office in the same manner at least 50 times over the next two years, without providing an explanation to plaintiff’s teachers and despite the fact that (the student) was not misbehaving in class, and sexually abused him there.”  Blanchard v. Moravia Central School District

— In Alabama, the legislature is introducing a policy that will enhance campus safety in private schools.  Senate Bill 4 would authorize a sheriff and county commission, or chief of police and city council, to provide SROs to private schools so long as SROs are available to all public schools in the jurisdiction.

— In Washington State, officials in the Seattle Public Schools are spending $14.5 million to enhance school safety following gun violence that places its campuses at risk.  Included are funds for hiring “more mental health counselors and social workers including 42 new positions to work at 21 school based health centers.”  “The money will also be used to expand safe passageway programs that help students get to and from school safely, and create a resource fund for families most at risk for gun violence.”

— Nationally,  Alyssa’s Law, which mandates the installation of silent panic alarms in elementary and secondary schools, has been enacted in “New York, New Jersey, Florida, Tennessee, Texas and most recently Utah.” It is also proposed “nationally and in Nebraska, Arizona, Michigan and many other states.”  The goal of the policy is to immediately alert emergency agencies, including law enforcement “without alerting an intruder,” enabling a faster responses.

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Safety Law News for August 22, 2024

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— In Kentucky, the United States District Court dismissed the case of a teacher in a case involving a gun that was found in her possession.  Applying the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the court characterized the case this way:  “What happens, then, when two school employees suspect that their colleague is under the influence of prescription medication, search her bag without permission, and find a firearm inside?  And what happens when school board officials find out and want to question the perpetrator? Has the Fourth Amendment been transgressed? The court held that the conduct of the employees (a registrar and a guidance counselor) was “conduct taken under color or pretense of state law” to which the constraints of the Fourth Amendment would apply.  The court held that the teacher had right to privacy in her purse – a reasonable expectation of privacy – because her “bag is not part of the workplace context” and there was no school “policy that could have provided (the teacher) with any notice that her personal effects could be subjected to a search.”  However, the court dismissed the lawsuit against the two school employees, applying qualified immunity to their conduct because “there exists no readily apparent precedent governing these facts… that an examination of a coworker’s bag under these circumstances would be held unconstitutional.”  Therefore, “(b)ecause (the teacher) has failed to prove that her right to be free from a search in this specific context by two collegial peers is clearly established, (the school employees) are entitled to qualified immunity.”  Lawson v. Creely

— In Illinois, “Waukegan School District 60 Superintendent of Schools Theresa Plascencia said in a letter to parents and staff that the school district has begun the year without the support of school resource officers (SROs) due to the lack of an intergovernmental agreement with the City of Waukegan.”

— In New Mexico, Officials in the Albuquerque Public Schools are implementing a Reunification Card Program to help “ease the wait in the unlikely event a school has to reunify students with parents/guardians in a non-typical end of the school day.”  “The cards are unique to each student, with a name, bar code and instructions on the back for families to utilize if they have to pick up their student or students during a reunification process.  Each family will receive two cards per student.”

— In Alabama, the Governor Kay signed HB 290 — the John Wesley Foster Act, “legislation that requires public schools to have a cardiac emergency response plan (CERP) in place that instructs people to dial 911, start CPR, and use an AED on campus and at school-sponsored athletic events in the case of a cardiac emergency.”

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Safety Law News for August 12, 2024

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— 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.”

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Safety Law News for August 6, 2024

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— 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.”

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Safety Law News for August 2, 2024

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— 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.”