Safety Law News for December 15, 2017 – School Safety Law Blog

In New Mexico, Las Cruces officials disagree over how to respond to active shooter situations. For now, the plan is to lock down the school, evacuate if necessary, and then fight in self-defense.

In Wisconsin, school resource officers in the Sheboygan School District will begin wearing body cameras. The SRO can use the cameras to record all enforcement and investigative incidents and, also whenever contact becomes adversarial. Footage captured by the cameras would be considered a “law enforcement unit record” and therefore exempt from FERPA. USDOE regulations say that images of students captured on video devices that are maintained by the school’s law enforcement unit are not considered education records under FERPA.

In Illinois, the final report of the Champaign County Racial Justice Task Force recommends that the city “retire the School Resource Officer program, hire behavioral specialists and add restorative justice to support healthy adolescent development and success in school and in life.”

In Texas, a lawsuit filed against the city of Southlake and a school resource officer fired for handcuffing an autistic student has been dismissed by a federal judge. The court ruled that the officer’s actions were reasonable under the circumstances.