school law

Wendy Zbeb, principal of Rochester HS, passed along this information memo from their district's Human Resources department for building administrators to review with their staff.

Submitted by Diane McMillan

MASSP Board member Jennifer Hammond, and member Marsha Kramer are featured in this article of interest. Northview HS, home of Mark Thomas, principal and Past MASSP President, and Dan Matthews, assistant principal, and 2005 NASSP National Assistant Principal of the Year, is also featured.

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MASSP 2008 Spring Law Update Recap

Let's face it...graduation time is like a capstone project for the high school principal. On commencement day the school community sizes up the student graduates and also the work of the principal and staff.

Do school district public safety officers or Student Resource Officers (SROs) have the right to search students under the “reasonable suspicion” standard that high school personnel use in conducting a search?

Here is the Revised School Code Act 451 of 1976 in its entirety.

Hint: As a pdf, this document is searchable. Just put your key word(s) in the "Search" or "Find" box in the pdf document and all instances of the word or phrase will come up. Scroll through the list to find your passage.

By Marshall W. Grate
A public school district must exercise caution in monitoring off-campus speech. In Layshock v Hermitage School District, (WD PA 2007), a public school district was held to have violated the First Amendment rights of a senior high school student when it issued a 10-day suspension for his creation of a parody profile of the high school principal on the student’s MySpace.com website during non-school hours at the student’s grandmother’s computer.

by Andre F. Mayes

Upholding the principle that students do not “shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” a California state court judge recently blocked a middle school from enforcing a strict dress code policy. Scott v Napa Valley Unified School District, No. 26-37082 (Cal Super Ct July 2, 2007).

In 1998, Redwood Middle School adopted a student dress code policy to control an emerging problem with gangs in the school.

By Lisa Swem
Attorney, Thrun Law Firm, P.C.