Safety Law News for March 3, 2023

— In South Carolina, the United States Court of Appeals affirmed the invalidation of South Carolina’s disorderly conduct law.  The law, prohibiting disorderly or boisterous conduct in public places and prohibiting the use of obscene or profane language within earshot of the school, was unconstitutionally vague in violation of Due Process Clause.  The appellate court agreed with the lower court that, “(t)he disorderly conduct law fails to give South Carolina’s schoolchildren fair warning about what it prohibits and vests practically unfettered discretion in those charged with its enforcement. We thus agree with the district court that the portions of that law prohibiting disorderly, boisterous, obscene, or profane language within earshot of a school are unconstitutionally vague as applied to elementary and secondary school students.”  Carolina Youth Action Project v. Wilson

— In Wisconsin, Assembly Bill 69, introduced by the legislature, would require schools with unsafe campuses to deploy police.  The text of the legislation in pertinent part: requires each public school, including a charter school, to report any incident that occurs in a school building or on school grounds to local law enforcement.” The bill provides that, “if 100 or more incidents occur in and on the buildings and grounds of a public school…and at least 25 of those incidents…result in an arrest, the school board shall, no later than the first day of the next school year, employ or contract for the employment of a law enforcement officer as an armed school resource officer to work at the school.”

— In Washington, D.C., “lawmakers are backing a proposal that would keep police officers in schools, reversing a measure that sought to remove law enforcement from campuses by 2025.”  “In January, police said a man who worked with the city’s Safe Passage Safe Blocks program, an effort designed to keep students safe on their commutes to and from school, was killed in a shooting outside Coolidge High School in Northwest Washington. Before that, Andre Jamar Robertson Jr., 15, died in an October shooting near Aiton Elementary School in Northeast.”  Some officials believe that, “Alongside teachers, counselors, and mental health pros, trained & trauma-informed SROs are important members of school communities.”

— In Connecticut, Waterbury schools Superintendent defended having school resource officers in city schools before state legislators, testifying favorably on an Education Committee bill that proposes to require agreements between school districts and local police departments on school resource officers to specify procedures relating to the restraint of students, use of firearms and school-based arrests.