Those nickel-and-dime fees for participating in the school band, lacrosse team or cheerleading squad are a frequent irritant to cash-strapped parents -- and it turns out, they may sometimes be illegal.The San Diego Union-Tribune has discovered that privately organized booster clubs in one local school district were exacting hundreds of dollars per student in mandatory participation fees for band, color guard and other after-school activities.
Author: Frank LoMonte
For California student videographer, a (non-)punishment that fits the (non-)crime
The second legal scrape of student videographer Josh Wolf's young career will not sting nearly so hard as the first.Wolf -- who holds the unwanted distinction of being America's longest-imprisoned journalist, for defying a federal grand jury subpoena to turn over videotapes shot at a protest rally -- got back into hot water in November 2009 for getting a little too close to the action at a demonstration on the University of California-Berkeley campus.Wolf was accused of three violations of UC-Berkeley's student conduct code when he remained inside a campus building occupied by student protesters despite a police order to leave.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Try this at home – some creative uses of FOI laws that you can swipe
On Saturday, I had the pleasure of teaching a public-records workshop to a roomful of bright, eager reporters at the Society of Professional Journalists' Region 11 convention.
Free the press — all of it — starting this World Press Freedom Day
In a recent speech to students at George Washington University, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed the power of online media to bring about positive social change.
Maryland journalists’ fight for campus sexual assault records yields more (and less) than expected
Twenty years ago, Congress decided that colleges could no longer hide behind federal privacy law to withhold information when they determined that a sex offense had been committed on campus.Knowing that serious crimes often are processed through secretive disciplinary channels outside of public view, Congress amended the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to say that the outcome of a disciplinary hearing is not confidential if the student is found culpable for conduct amounting to a crime of violence or a sex crime.Colleges have been slow to get this message, however, and Exhibit A is the University of Maryland -- which for the better part of the last three years fought student journalists' attempts to report on the way rape allegations are investigated and punished.It took a ruling from the state attorney general -- and even then, compliance took many months and a battle over jacked-up fees -- before the university agreed to comply with the Maryland Public Information Act and release the documents sought by student reporters from Capital News Service.Now it's apparent why Maryland was so resistant to disclosure: Because the answer to the question "who has been punished for committing a sexual assault on campus" is "almost no one."If the university's public-records production is complete, then only four students -- one of them a former Maryland Terrapins quarterback who transferred away in 2006 -- were punished by the school's Office of Student Conduct for sex offenses over the last 10 years, according to CNS. That is a remarkably low number for a school that enrolls more than 37,000 students annually.Maryland's Clery Act report, a federally mandated snapshot of campus crimes, shows 105 forcible sexual assaults reported from 2006 through 2008 alone.
Supreme Court debates First Amendment rights of elected officials in ethics law case
Supreme Court justices appeared perplexed Wednesday about how to resolve the case of a Nevada city councilman who claims his First Amendment free-speech rights were violated when he was penalized for voting on a casino development that financially benefited his campaign manager.Councilman Michael A.
College radio stations declare “moment of silence” to mark the “death” of independent student voices on the airwaves
Critics sometimes bemoan the "sameness" of programming across the over-the-air radio dial, but for one minute on Thursday, listeners truly will hear exactly the same thing whether they are in Missouri or Maryland or Michigan: The sound of silence.Not the Simon and Garfunkel classic, either.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: The sometimes-distasteful truth about cafeteria food
Sometimes public-records searches turn up back-room insider deals, kickbacks, golden parachutes and rigged contracts.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Top dogs, top paychecks — presidential pay and perks can raise eyebrows, questions
Year in and year out, some of the best money that a college newsroom can invest is in a subscription to The Chronicle of Higher Education, which – along with its comparably excellent (and online-only) competitor Inside Higher Ed – is a factory cranking out steal-able story ideas.The Chronicle is out with its annual survey of the compensation packages of presidents at America’s 185 largest public universities covering 2009-10, and as always, the compilation is fascinating reading (and provides multiple opportunities for follow-up and localization).Note that the term is “compensation” and not “salary” for a reason.
Want odds worse than playing against a casino with loaded dice? Try appealing a school disciplinary decision.
Jaw-dropping statistic of the month...A group of Fairfax County, Va., parents that is crusading for reform to their suburban school district's disciplinary system used the Virginia Open Records Act to find out how well students fare when they appeal the punishment they receive.Out of 5,025 cases over the past six years that went to a district-level appeal hearing, students were successful in getting disciplinary penalties overturned exactly zero times, according to the parents' compilation. That's right, 0-for-5,025.Even casinos let people win sometimes.