A Massachusetts judge's ruling involving the suicide of a teen bullying victim is the latest reaffirmation that school districts cannot lawfully enter into confidential agreements to conceal settlement payments from the public.In a Dec.
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TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Dept. of Ed. data illuminates school system inequities
If you want a loaf of bread, you could grind your own wheat flour, milk your own cows, and harvest your own eggs -- or, you could visit a bakery and let a pro do it.
SPLC, scholastic journalism groups support Washington students in privacy suit
The Student Press Law Center is urging the Washington Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court’s decision that a high school newspaper did not invade students’ privacy by publishing a story calling attention to the problem of teen promiscuity.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: If the public meeting seems staged, reporters should ask for tickets to the “rehearsal”
When I was a reporter in Florida covering that state's (now-defunct) Board of Regents, a remarkable statistical oddity dawned on me.
Eleventh Circuit applies Hazelwood, turns aside Georgia college student’s claim of religious viewpoint discrimination
A Georgia college did not violate the First Amendment in ordering a would-be school counselor to complete remedial training to learn how to set aside her personal disapproval of homosexuality when counseling gay and lesbian students, a federal appeals court has ruled.Jennifer Keeton failed to show that Augusta State University punished her for expressing religious views, or compelled her to espouse acceptance of homosexuality contrary to her beliefs, a three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit U.S.
December 2011 podcast: Survey paints picture of the state of high school journalism
Subscribe to SPLC podcasts on iTunes
Mark Goodman of Kent State University discusses the Scholastic Journalism Census and what researchers discovered about the state of high school media.
Toledo Blade editors come to the defense of student newspaper’s candid discussion of homosexuality
The Toledo Blade's resounding rebuke of the censors at Sylvania Northview High School should be required reading in every school district office in America:
School officials took a teachable moment and made the message: Stay in the closet.
Miss. student settles lawsuit after being excluded from yearbook because of her tuxedo
The Mississippi teenager whose yearbook portrait was removed because she wore a tuxedo will have her photo displayed alongside her classmates’ in the school library, as part of a settlement reached with the school district last week.The Copiah County School District also will scrap its portrait policy that required male students to wear tuxedos and female students to wear drapes for their official yearbook photos, the ACLU of Mississippi announced.Instead, all students will don graduation caps and gowns for their photos.Ceara Sturgis, a 2010 graduate of the Wesson Attendance Center, filed a discrimination lawsuit “on the basis of sex and on the basis of sex stereotypes” against the eastern Mississippi school district in August 2010.Sturgis, who prefers more masculine clothing, felt “uncomfortable” wearing the drape, designed to mimic a dress, in her photo.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: A reminder that FERPA privacy of disciplinary records isn’t all-or-nothing
A New Jersey court ruling released this week reinforces the now-well-established point that the public is entitled to disclosure of records from schools -- even sensitive ones that schools would prefer to classify as confidential -- with minimal edits to remove student names where necessary.In K.L.
Judicial deference to school officials’ “judgment” begs the question: What “judgment?”
Last month, federal appeals-court judge Richard Posner told a gathering of education lawyers that the judiciary should exhibit greater restraint before overriding the management decisions of school administrators:
We certainly have no experience running schools.