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Articles of Interest
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Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy and cadets at the U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Air Force Academy are required to undergo four years of prevention training, far more than the norm on civilian campuses.
These undergraduates are hardly typical. The future military officers must follow orders at schools that prize discipline. But the curriculum they absorb — on “bystander intervention,” mutual consent for sexual contact and tricky scenarios involving alcohol, among other topics — is familiar to those who track the growing national campaign against campus sexual violence.
Tazewell County School Board passes random drug testing for athletes
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
February 10, 2015
The Tazewell County School Board has unanimously passed a random drug-testing policy to help serve as a deterrent for student athletes who be pressured to try drugs.
“It’s into effect right now, so it will start with the next round of activities,” David Woodard, vice chair of the Tazewell County Board of Education, said.
The testing will be funded by a grant award received by Tazewell County Commonwealth Attorney Dennis Lee.
“There’s no education money or Tazewell County tax money going into this,” Woodard said.
Federal Policy
Schools confront e-cigarettes
The Moultrie Observer
February 16, 2015
Some schools are getting tougher on e-cigarettes, even punishing possession of the devices more harshly than regular cigarettes.
The devices, which heat a nicotine solution to create a vapor instead of burning tobacco, have passed traditional smokes in popularity among teenagers. Schools are clamping down because e-cigarettes, sometimes also known as vaporizers, can also be used for illegal substances like marijuana.
Most schools have folded e-cigarettes into their anti-tobacco policies, which typically punish students with detention, a letter home and sometimes a tobacco education class.
But other schools in states including North Carolina, New Jersey, Washington and Connecticut, are grouping the devices in with bongs and pipes, meaning students could face long suspensions and required drug tests and have possession of drug paraphernalia marked on their school record.
Still, the perky 11-year-old worries. During a recent practice exam at her school in Ohio, she couldn't even log on. "It wouldn't let me," she said. "It kept saying it wasn't right, and it just kept loading the whole time."
Her state on Tuesday will be the first to administer one of two tests in English language arts and math based on the Common Core standards developed by two separate groups of states. By the end of the school year, about 12 million children in 29 states and the District of Columbia will take them, using computers or electronic tablets.
The exams are expected to be more difficult than the traditional spring standardized state exams they replace. In some states, they'll require hours of additional testing time because students will have to do more than just fill in the bubble. The goal is to test students on critical thinking skills, requiring them to describe their reasoning and solve problems.
At Monday's meeting, Superintendent Craig Tice presided over a discussion regarding the first reading of a proposed regulation — Policy No. 7130 Entitlement to Attend - Age and Residency.
The policy, which was supposed to go into effect Jan. 31 as required by the federal government, he said, requires school districts to enroll prospective students and provide them with a class schedule before determining their residency and looking at their other records.
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Is school funding important to people?
Newly minted Congressman David Brat (VA-7) made some small waves in the education world this week when he suggested during a House Education and Workforce Committee proceeding that "Socrates trained Plato on a rock [so] . . . huge funding is not necessary to achieve the greatest minds."
We'll leave the potential questions about historical accuracy to the historians and focus on a different question - is school funding important to people? The relevance of the question is highlighted right now as the General Assembly, local school boards and city councils/boards of county supervisors all decide how much to budget for education for the coming fiscal year.
As Dr. Vacca points out in his February Education Law newsletter (excerpted below) the impact of strained fiscal resources is increasingly reaching into personnel matters as administrators look to maximize efficiency - with sometimes interesting impacts on education law.
So are Virginians overall likely to agree with Congresman Brat's comment? For a majority, probably not. In our most recent poll, 78% of adults think that funding affects education quality a great deal or quite a lot (see chart below). We also found that 68% of respondents felt that schools did not have enough funding to meet their needs.
Even when the question is brought home to one's own wallet - would you be willing to pay higher taxes to increase school funding - a majority still wants to see education spending increased.
So is Congressman Brat out of touch with his constituents? Our poll results give some potential evidence in both directions. Republican respondents to our poll (which was state-wide) were pretty much evenly split on whether they would be willing to pay more in taxes to increase school funding (47% willing, 51% not willing) and Brat represents a heavily Republican district. But 62% of Republican respondents state-wide felt that schools did not have enough funding to meet their needs and 46% of Republicans state-wide thought the amount of money spent on education affected quality a great deal.
Though Congressman Brat's alignment with constituents is an open question, it's pretty clear that in general in Virginia, people care about school funding.
Sincerely,
CEPI |
Education Law Newsletter - Teacher Employment Contracts: Potential Policy Issues
Excerpted from the February edition of our Ed Law newsletter, written by Senior Associate Dr. Richard Vacca.
Overview
Over the past decade several commentaries were devoted to discussions of legal and policy issues dealing with classroom teacher employment. While such subjects as tenure, dismissal, selection and use of curriculum materials, tort liability, sexual harassment, and First amendment rights have dominated prior discussions, the impact of local school system budget constraints also has been a focus of attention—especially as school funding levels are directly linked, via technology, to student progress and out-comes on statewide academic testing, drop-out statistics, and graduation rates.
As communities across this country continue to expect and insist that their local school boards do infinite things with a finite (albeit shrinking) budget, and as local community demographics rapidly change and student enrollments become more culturally diverse, being creative and flexible regarding personnel (including full-time teachers) is needed. Past solutions for past problems might not work in solving the emerging problems found in today’s rapidly changing, data-driven, social and fiscal environments. One area of close scrutiny by local school boards in dealing with today’s changing scene, where long term fiscal commitments are risky, involves classroom teacher contracts.
Teacher Assignment and Re-Assignment. As a general rule, absent a collective bargaining agreement or other contractual arrangement to the contrary, classroom teachers (both tenured and non-tenured) can be assigned and/or reassigned to any position or combination of positions for which they are qualified, (Vacca and Bosher, 2012) Historically, while tenured classroom teachers have been and remain less likely to find themselves in such a situation, non-tenured teachers, especially those in their probationary first three years of full-time employment, are often called upon by their principal to fill a variety of tasks (extra duties, for little to no compensation) in a school’s daily operation (e.g., bus duty, student club sponsor, hallway and playground supervision, committee membership, et al.). Issues are likely to spring up when assignments and/or reassignments are made during the school (i.e., contract) year, and/or effect salary, and/or work schedule of tenured teachers. In my view radical steps must be taken—maintaining the status quo will not work.
Property Interest Theory. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.” In a series of decisions the United States Supreme Court made it clear that both the due process and equal protection mandates of the Fourteenth Amendment apply to public school personnel. See, e.g., Board of Regents v. Roth (1972); Perry v. Sindermann (1972), Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill (1985), and others. In essence these decisions “balanced school board personnel prerogatives with teachers’ constitutional rights.” (Vacca and Bosher, 2012)
The initial burden carried by public school personnel triggering the application of Fourteenth Amendment protections involves the establishment of a property interest. More than a “mere expectation,” a property interest is grounded in fact. As the United States Supreme Court opined in Board of Regents v. Roth (1972), “The Fourteenth Amendment’s procedural protection of property is a safeguard of the security of interests that a person has already acquired in specific benefits…To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.” For example, to possess bona fide tenure or continuing contract status creates a property interest for the teacher holding this status. At the same time, another teacher working under a signed annual contract covering a specific period of time (duration) possesses a property interest while working under the conditions and duration, but not beyond the duration, of that particular contract. In both examples, while very different in nature, the commonality is that the holder has a “legitimate fact-based expectation” of continued employment. Thus, the termination (i.e., dismissal of either teacher triggers the potential for a Fourteenth Amendment challenge—especially one grounded in procedural due process (notice, cause, and hearing).
Recently I came across a very interesting decision handed down by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In my view the facts of the case and the Court’s rationale offer a possible glimpse into the future.
To read the full newsletter, visit our website.
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General Assembly Update - Week 5
Excerpted from CEPI's weekly General Assembly Update
" State Budget Issues
Overview
The House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees on Sunday unanimously approved amendments to the biennial budget plan introduced by Governor McAuliffe in December. The plans then were debated on the respective House and Senate floors on Thursday. The House approved its plan on an 81 to 18 vote, while the Senate plan passed 22 to 15. A committee of senior legislators will be working over the next two weeks to reach a compromise on the competing plans by the scheduled end of the legislative session on February 28.
The House plan anticipates about $378 million more in revenue than projected by the budget introduced by Governor McAuliffe; the Senate estimates $430 million more. Both plans eliminate or scale back new fees proposed in the McAuliffe budget. The governor announced yesterday that January revenue declined by 1.1 percent, attributable in part to one less deposit day and tax refunds being greater during the month. On a fiscal year-to-date basis, total revenue collections are up 5.3 percent, ahead of the forecast of 3.1 percent growth.
Highlights
Both plans propose funds for the state share of a 1.5 percent pay increase for school employees (instructional and support), effective August 1 in the House plan and September 1 in the Senate proposal, and contingent on FY15 revenues being met or exceeded. The Senate includes language that additional money for salaries may be available should FY16 revenue estimates be increased further.
The introduced budget included additional state funding from the sale of unclaimed property stocks to offset a portion of the unfunded teacher liability. Both the Senate and House budgets would pay down more of the unfunded liability balances. The House budget provides a total of $190 million, while the Senate budget provides $187.2 million. This additional infusion would lower the anticipated teacher retirement contribution rate from the 14.15 percent contained in the introduced plan to 14.07 percent (the budget adopted last year contained a 14.50 percent contribution rate for FY16). This action also results in local savings as well.
From remaining funds generated by the sale of unclaimed stock (above those targeted for the unfunded teacher liability), the introduced budget provided $75 million for school construction, with $50 million of that to go toward direct loans and $25 million for an interest rate subsidy for 39 projects on the Literary Fund first priority waiting list. The final $25 million would go to paying state costs for teacher retirement. The House proposes to eliminate the interest subsidy program and direct those funds to teacher retirement in FY16.
Finally, the Senate budget eliminates the nearly $30 million reduction in “aid to localities” in FY16, while the House does not address the issue. Restoring aid to localities stands to help local funding for public schools."
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