— In Louisiana, the Court of Appeal of Louisiana affirmed the liability of school officials and the school board in a case involving the failure to intervene in a student-on-student assault. The incident involved a pattern of sexual assaults in which the victim was injured while riding the school bus “as well as on school property.” The school officials promised to expel the student who committed the assault and not allow him to return to the school, but later allowed him to return and enroll and placed him “in several classes” with the victim. School officials also promised to assign the perpetrator on a different bus but did not do so. At trial, the standard was that, “before liability can be imposed upon a school board for failure to adequately supervise the safety of students, there must be proof of negligence in providing supervision and also proof of a causal connection between the lack of supervision and the accident.” As to supervision, “before a school board can be found to have breached the duty to adequately supervise the safety of students, the risk of unreasonable injury must be foreseeable, constructively or actually known, and preventable if a requisite degree of supervision had been exercised.” The appellate court affirmed liability because, “the trial court applied the appropriate standard of liability… This case involves a sexual assault which occurred numerous times while on a school bus. During this time, the evidence shows that the same offender bullied and assaulted other students as well. The offender admitted to the sexual assault while in the presence of a law enforcement officer and the principal of the middle school. Additionally, (the perpetrator) was allowed to continue at the same school, in the same activities, in the same classes, and on the same school bus with the victim despite numerous assurances to the contrary… The plaintiffs eventually rectified the situation themselves by removing the victim from the school and placing him in private school.” David Travasos v. Lafayette Parish School Board
— In Kentucky, school officials and law enforcement are ramping up their training of crisis incident responses while students are absent for the summer. “While school halls are empty of students, school resource officers (SROs) have been… training at East Jessamine Middle School simulating an active shooter scenario.
— In Virginia the superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools “has announced that he will not be putting armed school resource officers into elementary schools and the county sheriff says he isn’t happy about the decision. Mixed opinions are coming from parents and community and members too.”
— In Colorado, officials in the Denver Public Schools are announcing data on weapons confiscated during the school year just ended. They “found fewer weapons on campus this past school year, data shows. The district’s chief of safety partly credits the reintroduction of armed school resource officers.”