— In New Jersey, the United States Court of Appeals, affirmed the dismissal of a student injury case brought by parents who alleged that a teacher used excessive force against their child. The incident involved a “teacher … setting the gym up for kindergarten graduation and watching the fifth graders who were there.” One of the fifth graders “was horsing around. He lay across a girl’s lap and then started repeatedly throwing himself to the floor.” The teacher, failing to succeed in getting the student to stand up, “grabbed him by the arm” as the student was “lying between two girls who were tickling him.” The student alleged that the teacher “grabbed him by the arm and pulled him (and) when (he) tried to go back to his chair, (the teacher) put “his fist out by his chest” and kept pushing harder and harder.” The student alleged that the teacher “punched him,” bruising his arm and hurting his chest. Another teacher arrived and assisted in removing the student from the gym. The lower court granted summary judgment for the school. Affirming, the appellate court ruled that “a teacher may use reasonable force to maintain order.” Excessive force occurs when “a teacher uses (1) excessive force (2) without any pedagogical imperative (3) maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm, (4) creating serious injury.” Applying this standard, the teacher acted reasonably. “This force hardly shocks the conscience. It was reasonable to address (the student’s) unruly behavior, and no rational trier of fact could find that it was done only to cause harm or that it did create serious injury.” Sanchez v. Elizabeth Board of Education
— In Texas, the Governor signed into law House Bill 33. The provisions of the “Uvalde Strong Act” seek to strengthen emergency operations planning, security reviews and safety audits, and training to help protect students and staff in a crisis event. It mandates law enforcement agencies across the state create crisis response policies, meet annually with schools in order to plan effective responses to an active shooter situation, and imposes a training requirement on officers.
— In Illinois, schools are implementing an upgraded emergency management system that improves location validation and call routing. In the system, “every room in each school is identified by a number… The maps use color coding to distinguish different types of spaces—classrooms in one color, restrooms in another, common areas in a third. The map (uses) wayfinding advancements, including door numbers placed not just inside rooms but on exterior windows, allowing responders to identify specific locations even when setting up perimeters outside the building.”
— In Arizona, educators in the Agua Fria Union High School District are implementing next-level cyberattack incident response protocols. New technology is enhancing the policy to “proactively deploy cybersecurity measures … to detect threats and prevent breaches.” The protocol “includes having an incident command structure: identifying who leads the response, who handles communications, who has authority to turn off IT systems and establishing the criteria for when to escalate issues to district leadership.”