— In California, the California Court of Appeal reversed the lower court in an important case involving the sexual abuse of a student by school employees. The lower court dismissed the case, ruling that the school district was not liable because the incidents were unforeseeable. The rule applied by the lower court was that, “foreseeability require(s) as matter of law that school supervisory or administrative personnel knew or should have known (of) the deviant propensities of the employee that commits the abuse and nevertheless hired, retained, or inadequately supervised him or her.” In reversing, the appellate court ruled that “(g)iven the special relationship between public schools and their students, LAUSD supervisors and administrators have a duty of care to use reasonable measures to protect students from foreseeable injury at the hands of others.” Therefore, a more rigorous test applied. Under the more rigorous test, “foreseeability (does) not require such actual or imputed knowledge about the specific employee, and instead address(es) the foreseeability of risk to students in general from sexual abuse by persons at the school.” The evidence showed that educators, “fail(ed) to take reasonable measures that would have precluded (their employee) from abusing (students), (e.g.,) employees were not asked for references before being hired… LAUSD personnel avoided taking steps to observe (the employee’s) classroom and become aware what was going on there.” Therefore, reversal was necessary. “A special relationship is formed between a school district and its students resulting in the imposition of an affirmative duty on the school district to take all reasonable steps to protect its students.” R.D. v. Los Angeles Unified School District
— In Wisconsin, police officers are slated to return to Milwaukee Public Schools in January 2024. The Wisconsin legislature enacted a comprehensive set of polices in 2023 WISCONSIN ACT 12 that require the Milwaukee school district to deploy police officers on campus. The district eliminated police officers from its schools in 2020 for social equity reasons.
— In South Carolina, the legislature enacted House Bill 3360, establishing a school safety center to better train law enforcement and educators on preventing and responding to safety threats. “The Center for School Safety and Targeted Violence will … provide a training location for law enforcement officers in the form of a real school setting.” Officials announced that, “training will include active shooter exercises as well as behavioral threat assessments with two full-time Behavioral Science Unit agents who will work at the facility.”
— In California, officials in the Sonoma County Office of Education are considering policies to address a spate of violence in schools in the Santa Rosa City Schools district. Three middle school students were arrested after a fight involving a knife. Earlier, a high school student was killed in a classroom fight involving a knife. Parents and teachers spoke out, “urging the district to bring school resource officers back to local campuses.”