— In Pennsylvania the United States District Court ruled that the provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) were not violated by keeping a student in an interim alternative education setting beyond the forty-five (45) day limit without a hearing. The special needs student “brought a three-inch pocketknife to school and was displaying the knife to other students.” A manifestation determination meeting ruled that it was not a manifestation of his disability nor “caused by the Local Educational Agency’s (LEA’s) failure to implement the IEP.” Educators placed the student in an “interim alternative educational setting for forty-five (45) days due to the weapons violation,” and later agreed with his grandparents to delay his “return to the District high school (until) the beginning of the second marking period, thereby extending the 45-day placement.” Soon thereafter, the student sent an email threatening to “ shoot up the school and die” and killed a named school official. The manifestation determination again ruled that this incident was not a manifestation of his disability. The student was expelled for the school year. The Administrative Hearing Officer concluded that the District had not denied the student his IDEA rights. On appeal, the court ruled that, “review of a hearing officer’s decision in an IDEA case is subject to a unique standard of review…(in which) findings of fact … are to be considered prima facie correct…and no deference is given to the hearing officer’s legal holdings.” The court ruled that ‘the determination of whether a change in a child’s educational routine is a “change in placement” is a fact-specific one.” Therefore, “based on the evidence, a reasonable fact finder could not conclude that the extension of the interim placement constituted a “change in placement.” Jordan L. v. East Stroudsburg Area School District
— In Indiana, the Governor approved The Secured School Safety Grant a nearly $30 million grant to enhance Indiana school security. The funding is “allocated in various categories, two-thirds of which went to increasing the number of school resources and law enforcement officers within local school systems.”
— In Kentucky, the Kentucky School Security Marshal says schools fall short in providing both resource officers, and mental health counselors. The Task Force on School and Campus Safety found that “the main culprits for not having assigned SRO, majority of course was funding and personnel.”
— In Arizona, the Superintendent of Public Instruction is entering into an agreement with private a company to address staffing shortages that is making filling school resource officer positions difficult. Arizona law provides millions of dollars in grants for schools to hire school resource officers, as well as counselors and social workers. As to officers, “when they went to hire someone, they found out that the police departments couldn’t spare enough people to fill those positions.”