District Administration - April 2007 - (Page 36)

THE LAW the more liberal times of the Warren Supreme Court, the ratio of wins to losses favored school districts by 60 percent to 40 percent,” he says. “If we look more recently at outcomes, those numbers have shifted to 70 percent to 30 percent.” To avoid unspeciﬁed district policies, Manatee County Schools has issued a nine-chapter policies and procedures manual covering everything from the Pledge of Allegiance and student publications to bus evacuation drills and grievance procedures for employees. In February the district added a section on HIV-infected students, same behaviors at his next school. The failure of the ﬁ rst school to document and communicate the teacher’s malfeasance became grounds for legal action. Hutton says in some cases you may need to get even further ahead of a legal problem. “If a kid wants to hand out candy canes with a religious connotation, you’d better pick up the phone and call your lawyer” in advance, he urges. Possibly planned by a larger religious group, hoping for a difference of opinion, “the lawsuit [could] already be drafted [by the group] before the kid asks for permission,” he says. Good training for administrators, teachers and support staff can serve as a district’s best investment, Hutton points out, noting that most states require principals and other administrators to take a school law course. “Take that course seriously because you’ll discover early in your administrative career how frequently law is lurking in the background of the decisions you have to make.” “We do more preventative work than litigation,” admits Bowen. “It’s important to train the administrators and teachers on the front line how to recognize a legal issue and seek advice so you can develop a strategy. But whenever you’re in doubt, call your school board attorney.” DA Ron Schachter is a contributing editor based in Newton, Mass. VIEWPOINT DISCRIMINATION After this kindergartner’s poster was censored by school ofﬁcials at Baldwinsville Elementary School, Liberty Counsel, a religious advocacy group, ﬁled suit. 82 percent of teachers and 77 percent of principals say they have made decisions driven by a fear of legal challenges. 78 percent of those teachers say that their students were “quick to remind them that they have rights and that their parents can sue.” Source: 2004 Common Good survey Legal Pitfalls and District Solutions In the case of many school lawsuits, say Schwartz and others, it may be in your best interest to ﬁght back. “What you can be sued over is different from what you will lose in court,” Hutton notes. Bowen makes sure the administrators in Manatee County get that message and resist settling unjustiﬁed cases. “I tell my administrators not to take action based on someone threatening to sue. I take the stand that we don’t pay a penny for nuisance value. I tell them to say, ‘Don’t sue us unless you’re willing to incur the costs of going all the way.’” According to Zirkel—who has studied the outcomes of school cases over the past 50 years—the odds have always favored the schools. “Even in 36 April 2007 guaranteeing conﬁdentiality, but also authorizing the principal to convene an advisory panel if a student’s condition worsened to the point where he might be a health threat to others in school. “The difference between a district that pays a huge settlement and one that gets off the hook is that they took the situation seriously from the start and didn’t just hope it would go away,” says Hutton. Attorneys say that educational administrators need to treat less egregious cases as seriously and promptly. Albuquerque attorney Gail Stewart adds that quietly passing a problem on to another school can also have repercussions. She recalls one teacher in New Mexico who was forced out of a school for inappropriate behavior with students and then repeated the RESOURCES Albuquerque Public Schools ww2.aps.edu American Tort Reform Association www.atra.org Manatee County School District www.manatee.k12.ﬂ.us NSBA Council of School Attorneys www.nsba.org/cosa District Administration http://ww2.aps.edu http://www.atra.org http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us http://www.nsba.org/cosa

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - April 2007

Editor's Letter
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
“See You in Court!"
Lost in Translation
Bonding Agents
Certifying AP Courses
Hunting for Talent - Part 2
Buying Power
The Musty Bookshelf
New Products
Leadership
Speaking Out
The Online Edge
Problem/Solution
Calendar of Events
Overheard On The Pulse

District Administration - April 2007