— In Ohio, the United States District Court ruled that parents were not entitled to a preliminary injunction prohibiting a school from enforcing its policy against discriminatory harassment or bullying based on the personal characteristics of other students. The parents sued to relieve their children of the burden of being “forced to use the pronouns that a transgender child identifies with or be subject to reprimand.” The court looked back to the case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, holding that, “public schools are permitted to proscribe student speech that “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.”” The court also, noted that “school policies intended to reduce the pervasive harassment of transgender students…advance public schools’ mission of ensuring that all students have an opportunity to learn and grow in an environment most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation.” Finally, the court said, the parents, “cannot establish (a right to file a lawsuit) because (their children) have not suffered an injury in fact, because none of the students (have) been disciplined for violating any of the Policies.” Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District
— In Tennessee, public and private schools in the state “have a new mandate: Keep exterior school doors locked or secured with an employee gatekeeper, even for after-school events when students are present. The law, part of an overall $230 million school safety and security program that went into effect July 1… also includes grant funding for every school to have a school resource officer.”
— In Missouri, many school districts are being trained on the software Raptor Alert, which will allow school staff to silently trigger alarms and communicate with emergency responders. State funding is available for school districts to sign up for the mobile application.
— In Ohio, two Warren County private schools plan to pay full cost to deploy a resource officer to their campuses. The Lebanon Christian Schools of Lebanon is contracting with the City of Lebanon and the St. Margaret of York Catholic School is contracting with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. The officers would not be school employees, and the police department and sheriff’s office would be responsible for the conduct and performance of the officers.