In Texas, the Texas Court of Appeals ruled that a school resource officer acted in good faith and did not engage in an excessive use of force in discharging pepper spray during an altercation at a high school soccer game. The court held that the good faith standard does not penalize an officer for the need to make a split-second decision to protect himself and the public. A reasonable officer could have believed using pepper spray under the circumstances was warranted after verbal commands and physically separating the athletes was no longer effective. (Hernandez v. Blackburn)
In Kentucky, the United States District Court held that a school district may be liable for the criminal actions of its employees when school policy empowers the illegal conduct. The lawsuits arise out of two cases, involving the same employee, who confiscated student cell phones, searched the phones, found nude photographs, transferred them from the phones, and uploaded them to the Internet. The court refused to dismiss both cases, ruling that the cases raise the question of whether school policies, training, and supervision make the district vicariously liable to the students. (Malott v. LaRue County School District) (Bussell v. Elizabethtown Independent School District)
In West Virginia, the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department and the Wayne County Board of Education are bringing back resource officers for Wayne, Tolsia and Spring Valley schools after school officials said response times weren’t up to par to what they should be.
In North Carolina, the State Superintendent of Education announced that it will provide a statewide Say Something Anonymous Reporting System in the 2019-20 school year. The Say Something program is a school safety app designed to teach students, educators, and administrators how to recognize the signs and signals of those who may be at risk of hurting themselves or others and to anonymously report this information.