— In Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled on appeal that a school district’s decision to expel a public high school student, based on his act of posting violent song lyrics to social media, outside of school hours and while not on school property, violated his free speech rights. Educators concluded that the student’s speech constituted harassment, was a terroristic threat, and had disrupted the school environment. The court ruled that the student, “did not explicitly target specific …students, let alone the broader School District community…. [such that] where a student’s properly contextualized, off-campus speech is not distinctly connected to school activities or clearly directed towards members of their educational community, a public school’s reach exceeds its constitutional grasp.” Appeal of G.S. by & through Snyder
— In Wisconsin, students from La Crosse Central High School are planning to speak to the School District of La Crosse’s Board of Education. Their mission is to present a petition and give board members the students’ support of school resource officers (SRO’s). This movement started over a month ago when the students learned of the District’s plan to reduce the number of officers next year.
— In Michigan, the School Safety Task Force, created by the legislature after the deadly shooting at Oxford High School late 2021, has published preliminary recommendations on school safety. The Task Force wants schools to remove immediate threats to classrooms sooner. This end will be served by improving communication among schools, local law enforcement, and the state’s OK2Say tip line, requiring ongoing safety training for school resource officers and other school staff, and adding a staff member in each district to oversee mental health services, security, and threat assessment.
— In New York, the Schenectady City School Board passed a resolution for the return of school resource officers (“community engagement officers”) to the schools. “The school board said it has participated in a school resource officer pilot program in the past, and it has worked out well.”