Education Commons^™

A Review Of Existing Literature Surrounding Female Educator Sexual Misconduct In Anglo-American Classrooms, Avery Barnes, Isaac Calvert

BYU Education & Law Journal

A 2004 literature review commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education estimated that one in every ten students would experience sexual harassment or abuse at the hands of an educator during their time in public schools. Even more alarming, multiple studies within Shakeshaft’s 2004 review suggested that this issue goes well beyond the reported data. At that time, leading social science research estimated that only 6% of children who were victims of educator sexual misconduct reported it. With significant developments in digital communications technologies since that 2004 study, researchers in the U.S. Department of Education have estimated that the number …

Elj 2024 Front Matter

BYU Education & Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Practitioner's Approach To Examining Title Ix, Jordan Tegtmeyer, Ashley Nicoletti

BYU Education & Law Journal

With the 52nd anniversary of Title IX happening this spring amid recent issues related to gender equity in college sports, we thought it important to examine Title IX’s three-part test. The past year’s Title IX stories indicate a gap in understanding around compliance with its three-part test. Whether it be disparate accommodations for NCAA women’s basketball and softball players or institutions citing Title IX as one of the rationales for dropping sports, Title IX has been all over the news. This article seeks to establish a legal and regulatory framework practitioners can use when thinking about compliance with Title IX’s …

Let's Get Critical: The Rights And Obligations Of School District Stakeholders Under State Laws Limiting Or Banning Discussion Of Critical Race Theory In K-12 Classrooms, John E. Rumel

BYU Education & Law Journal

Critical Race Theory has moved from the halls of academia to the center of a national debate about the role of teachers in instructing students about race, race relations and the United States’ troubled history concerning those subjects. Addressing growing concerns over Critical Race Theory from the political right, state legislatures have responded quickly by enacting a host of Anti-Critical Race Theory (anti-CRT) bills that seek to expel Critical Race Theory from the classroom.

Student Athlete Or Student Employee? Considering The Future Implications Of Recent College-Athletics Decisions Regarding Employee Classification, Nathan Schmutz, Joseph Hanks

BYU Education & Law Journal

Nature often provides warning signs of oncoming danger. For example, a generally recognized phenomenon associated with a tidal wave caused by an oceanic earthquake is the major withdrawal of water resembling an extreme low tide. Universities take note, a similar phenomenon might be occurring in relation to college sports. Recent decisions might be signaling a receding of waters before a surge of litigation that results in college athletes being considered employees of the university. This paper considers recent court and administrative decisions that might be indicative of this major shift and discusses possible implications of such a change.

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Front Matter

BYU Education & Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Costs Of A Free And Public Education: An Analysis Of A School District's Student Fees, Jacob D. Skousen, Ellianna Rodriguez

BYU Education & Law Journal

Since the late 1800s U.S. states have provided a “centrally administered organization of public schools, overseen by a state superintendent or department of education and financed by state income tax revenues in addition to local taxes.” States have governed a system of public schools through the states’ constitutions. Each state’s constitution has a statement identifying the state as being responsible to provide its citizenry with a public education and in the majority of states’ constitutions there is further clarification noting that this education is provided free of charge. An example of this statement can be found in Nevada’s State Constitution, …

Performance Gaps And Opportunities For Growth: Addressing Remote Learning In Nevada, Anna Dreibelbis-Colquitt

BYU Education & Law Journal

Although education is not a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, it is nonetheless deemed as “perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.” The importance of education is reinforced through the Nevada Constitution. Specifically, Article 11 states that “[t]he legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools,” which is seen through the public school system. However, this ‘uniform’ system drastically changed two years ago with the surge in online learning.

The Dual Role Of The Campus Police Officer At Public Institutions Of Higher Education, Anne Walther

BYU Education & Law Journal

The role of campus police officers at public institutions of higher education is multifaceted and not so clearly defined. Campus police officers are there to enforce the law, protect the students, and ensure campus safety. However, these officers also have to manage the responsibilities and privileges that come with holding the dual role as both a law enforcement officer and a school official. For example, while police officers at these institutions carry out many traditional police functions such as investigating criminal offenses, making arrests, and enforcing the law; they often also have additional responsibilities that fall outside of those typical …

"I Feel Like A Dumping Ground" - Legal Issues Surrounding Paraprofessionals In Schools, Catherine Robert, Maureen Fox

BYU Education & Law Journal

School employees serving in non-professional clerical and support roles are commonly referred to as paraprofessionals. While professional staff include teachers, counselors, and administrators, paraprofessionals serving in instructional roles (also called teaching assistants) such as classroom aides, computer lab monitors, and library aides comprise almost 13% of elementary and secondary employment. Paraprofessionals perform a wide variety of tasks including literacy support in a regular classroom, behavioral support of students, and supporting medical needs of students receiving special education services. The medical needs of students include changing feeding tubes, clearing airways, changing diapers, and physically moving students. As the staff members most …

Reflections Of A Litigator: Serrano V. Priest Goals And Strategies, Sid Wolinsky

BYU Education & Law Journal

In this article, I intend to describe what we hoped to achieve at that time and the strategies we used, and then to circle back and offer some observations about what we might learn from the litigation.

Segregation And School Funding Disparities In California: Contemporary Trends 50 Years After Serrano, David S. Knight, Nail Hassairi, David G. Martinez

BYU Education & Law Journal

In this paper, we present a longitudinal analysis of the school finance system of California and assess changes that have taken place over the past 30 years.

Front Matter

BYU Education & Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Serrano: Three V. Priest, John E. Coons

BYU Education & Law Journal

Of my fifty-years of post-Serrano observations, the clearest is that more of the same is not the answer to this society's worst public school problem: our deliberate and unnecessary purging of the legal responsibility and authority of the lower-income parent, the same authority and responsibility so highly valued by the middle class.

State Courts And Education Finance: Past, Present And Future, Michael A. Rebell

BYU Education & Law Journal

Fifty years ago, few legal analysts would be predicted this spate of creative state court activity regarding educational rights.

Serrano V. Priest 50th Anniversary: Origins, Impact And Future, Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos, Lawrence O. Picus

BYU Education & Law Journal

The purpose of this special issue is to revisit the origins and impact of Serrano and to speculate on the future directions of school finance litigation. We provide a synopsis of each manuscript a the end of this introduction.

John Serrano Did Not Vote For Proposition 13, William A. Fischel

BYU Education & Law Journal

Rather than advancing new arguments, this essay will review my work on this subject in the form of a memoir (with popular-song headings that betray my vintage) about my evolving interest in the Serrano and Proposition 13 connection.

Surfing The Waves: An Examination Of School Funding Litigation From Serrano V. Priest To Cook V. Raimondo And The Possible Transition Of The Fourth Wave, Christine Rienstra Kiracofe, Spencer Weiler

BYU Education & Law Journal

To mark the important anniversary of the landmark school finance case Serrano v. Priest, we examine the small(er) but important role that federal claims have played in school funding litigation.

Front Matter

BYU Education & Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reimagining The Right To Public Education, Logan Miller

BYU Education & Law Journal

Critiques of the United States public education system abound. Many of these critiques expose the reality that the public school system regularly fails to do what it purports to do. Others discuss how the public school system in fact achieves some of its more insidious purposes. When the reality of the public schooling experience – especially for students from marginalized communities – is juxtaposed with the lofty rhetoric surrounding public education, a substantial disjuncture is evident: there is a gap between the idealized notions of public education and the actual learning environments and outcomes for many public school students. For …

Three Common-Sense Measures To Limit The School-To-Prison Pipeline In Maryland, John Marinelli

BYU Education & Law Journal

In 2016, a Salisbury, Maryland eighth grader left class without permission and ran through the halls of his middle school. As punishment for his adolescent defiance, the boy was not sent home or suspended but rather pepper-sprayed, handcuffed, and criminally prosecuted.

This episode exhibits the harsh realities of a school-to-prison pipeline that annually funnels thousands of Maryland students into the criminal justice system as a consequence of in-school misbehavior. Criminal interaction of this sort negatively affects children in numerous well-documented, often disastrous ways. To improve these circumstances in Maryland, three contributing factors stand out as ripe for change: the state’s …

Education Abroad For Students With Disabilities: Legal Implications, Heidi Fischer

BYU Education & Law Journal

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, United States (U.S.) student participation in education abroad (EA) programs increased by more than thirty percent over a ten-year span.1 During the 2018-19 academic year, more than 36,000 students studying abroad identified as students with disabilities (nearly ten percent).2 The steady rise in U.S. student participation in EA programs in the past decade not only suggests renewed post-pandemic growth, but it also supports the idea that greater quantities of students with disabilities will study abroad during their postsecondary education than in previous years. With nearly one in five undergraduate students identifying as having a dis-ability,3 …

Equity In Education: Fixing Compensatory Education For Students With Disabilities, Melia Cerrato

BYU Education & Law Journal

In March 2020, the United States went into lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, school districts were given little guidance on whether to cancel classes, provide distance learning, or give a mix of both. There are over 7 million students with disabilities, and while it is unknown how many of these were denied access to their statutory right to a free appropriate public education (FAPE)1 under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the multitude of class action lawsuits that arose out of the shutdown demonstrate how wide-spread the problem was for families. However, the denial of …

“It’S A Big Deal:” The Impact Of Texas’ Senate Bill 212 On Student Safety And Wellbeing On Texas’ College Campuses, Zachary W. Taylor, Joshua Childs, Pat Somers

BYU Education & Law Journal

Over the past few years, there has been a heightened sense of security and activism on college campuses regarding sexual harassment and sexual violence. On college campuses across the country, there have been a litany of lawsuits alleging that young adults—many of them college students—have either been assaulted on campus and institutions have not done their due diligence through Title IX reporting, or that students have been falsely accused and punished by a university that has overreached its legal authority.

Watch Your Language: How A School District's Failure To Provide Meaningful Communication Has Impacted Students During The Pandemic, Amy Leipziger

BYU Education & Law Journal

This article examines some of the obstacles that LEP parents have experienced with the NYCDOE during the pandemic, the impact these obstacles have had on their children’s education, and whether the NYCDOE’s refusal to provide language access amounts to a denial of a sound basic education under state constitutional law.12 I chose to focus primarily on New York City because it boasts the nation’s largest school system, with nearly 1.1 million students, and is comprised of 1,876 schools.13 A large share of these students have significant language needs. In New York state, forty-six percent of children in low-income families have …

Indiana's Uniform School System, The Right To Literacy, And Remote Learning In A Pandemic, Jesse Smith

BYU Education & Law Journal

The COVID pandemic has undoubtedly exposed new challenges in education. However, the reality is that it has also exposed pre-existing, underlying systemic problems, and exacerbated them to the point that the only responsible thing to do would be to deal with them in earnest. For curricular fees, specifically, permitting schools to charge fees for technology and require their use to access the classroom is running counter to the statutory permissive scheme Indiana has in place, likely past the point of being constitutional. Indiana has shown a willingness in the past to demonstrate that, at least for education, there really is …

Invasion Of School Children's Privacy: Teachers Need To Be Put In Timeout, John D. Janicek, Joseph H. Hanks

BYU Education & Law Journal

This article makes the argument that such social media posts constitute a serious invasion of a child’s privacy right, and that the responsibility for enforcement should fall on schools and school districts. However, since such enforcement is currently lacking, this article argues that potential remedies may exist within the framework of federal law. And if local education authorities continue to fail to address the problem, the article argues that a legislative approach might be called for, at the state, or even federal, level.

Student Privacy In The Digital Age, Susan G. Archambault

BYU Education & Law Journal

Students and teachers need to understand what rules govern their digital experience in terms of data being collected from the systems and software they use. Students have a tendency to share personal information online, and are largely unconcerned about third-party access to their data.30 Furthermore, they may feel pressured to waive privacy rights in order to participate in classroom activities requiring the use of educational technology tools.31 The recent COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this problem. In fact, The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and National Education Association (NEA) recently released new recommendations for the use of video conferencing platforms …

Elj Front Matter 2021

BYU Education & Law Journal

No abstract provided.