Safety Law News for June 28, 2016

  • In Alabama, the new interagency school safety agreement between Huntsville school officials and police is proving difficult. One point of contention is marijuana. Some officials believe any quantity is arrestable, while some are opposed to arresting children for small amounts.
  • In Georgia, a new chief of police and 67 new school resource officers were sworn in as members of the Atlanta Public Schools Police Department. The new police officers will be assigned to middle and high schools.

 

Safety Law News for June 7, 2016

  • In Delaware, a coalition of state officials, education administrators and police say that the first step to reducing violence among young people is to have police officers assigned to elementary and middle schools.
  • In Missouri, the Governor has signed House Bill 1583 into law.  It requires teachers to receive two hours of training in suicide awareness and prevention by the 2017-2018 school year. The new law also adds a cyberbullying prohibition to the education code.
  • In Georgia, the Georgia Department of Education has released its 2015 School Climate Star Ratings.  The data is reported in a five-star system that defines school climate as “the quality and character of school life” based on surveys from parents and school personnel.

Safety Law News for June 2, 2016

  • In Georgia, according to new state statistics nearly 4 out of 10 Atlanta schools are at unsatisfactory levels on matters of safety and security.
  • In Kentucky, according to recent a survey of the Kentucky Center for School Safety, the No. 1 bullying-related frustration reported by school administrators comes from parents who misunderstand bullying and complain about school discipline.

Safety Law News for May 27, 2016

  • In New York, data provided by the NYPD data contradict Mayor de Blasio’s repeated assertions that city schools are safe. Over 1,750 weapons have been recovered in the past 10 months — up 26 percent over last year.
  • In California, the San Francisco Unified School District has successfully settled a lawsuit for $11.5 million to settle a lawsuit it brought against a school bus company that used unsafe buses to transport San Francisco students.
  • In Indiana, the Indiana Department of Education certified a new class of school safety specialists, bringing the total number of these officials to about 2,500.  The number of these specialists deployed at schools throughout Indiana has more than doubled since 2010.

Safety Law News for May 24, 2016

Safety Law News for May 19, 2016

  • In South Carolina, two high school administrators are being investigated after an incident report revealed that school resource officers were never called to assist in a search for a gun inside a student’s car at the school.
  • In California, a history of campus violence and the failure of educators to institute a safe schools plan is the basis of the lawsuit of parents whose son was shot in the head on campus.
  • In California, a Ventura County grand jury began an investigation after receiving a complaint about safety at the schools.  The grand jury has told the Ventura County Office of Education to dedicate a school resource officer on campus at one school for emotionally disturbed students.