— In Colorado, the United States District Court held that summary judgment was inappropriate in a Title IX case involving student-on-student sexual harassment. The case arose out of a series of incidents in which for several years male students would “grope, grab, or touch female students’ breasts as part of “Titty Touch Tuesday””… and slap or touch the butts of mostly female students as part of “Slap Ass Friday.”” Students tended not to report the assaults because, “it was so normalized that they assumed administrators knew it was happening.” The court announced that, “school recipients of federal funds may be liable under Title IX for its own conduct in being deliberately indifferent to student-on-student sexual harassment…to establish school district liability under Title IX for being deliberately indifferent to student-on-student sexual harassment, a plaintiff must demonstrate that (1) an appropriate person with authority to take corrective action to end the discrimination (2) had actual knowledge of discrimination in the recipient’s programs but (3) failed adequately to respond in a manner amounting to deliberate indifference, and (4) the harassment was so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it deprived the victim of access to the educational benefits or opportunities provided by the school. The court ruled that summary judgement of not appropriate because while it was “undisputed that multiple former students who attended …from 2010 through 2017…described a culture wherein male students touched female students’ breasts on Tuesdays and their butts on Fridays without consent… the parties dispute the level of knowledge of the administrators.” A.C. as next friend S.T.C. v. Jefferson County R-1 School District
— In Virginia, a Blue Ribbon Panel on School Safety for Loudoun County Public Schools has produced a series of recommendations for protecting students. The major take-away was the proposal for school officials to hire police officers or private security guards the 61 public elementary schools. Police are already deployed at the middle schools and high schools. The only police presence in Loudoun’s elementary schools is through the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program. Other recommendations include (2) increasing security personnel coverage for after-school events; (3) making school-level participation in safety & security and threat assessment training a priority; (4) making sure that police and mental health representatives are involved in every threat assessment; (5) designating the Division of Safety & Security as a “Law Enforcement Unit” for purposes of FERPA; (6) designating a campus as an alternative school; (7) adding “a digital analysis assessment to all serious and very serious threat assessments.” The recommendations are now up for public review and feedback.
— In New York, the Niskayuna Central School District School Board is authorizing a outside consultant to study “the potential return of its dormant school resource officer (SRO) program.” The Board acknowledges that, “(o)ver the course of the last month to two months, there’s been considerable advocacy from the community for an SRO program and opposed to an SRO program.”
— In Kentucky, a Report by the Tennessee Department of Education and the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security shows that “just 67% of public elementary schools and 75% of public middle and high schools” have taken advantage of the $140 million provided by the state last summer to put an armed school resource officer in every school.