Student Rights and Responsibilities

Court cases

and

Legislation

What is supposed to happen in schools?

• Teachers are supposed to teach

• Students are supposed to learn

• All legislation and case history are directed toward those ends

• Best way to stay clear of legal problems with students--concentrate on teaching and learning--don’t stray into “convenient battlegrounds”

Compulsory Attendance

• Arkansas Code Annotated 6-18-201• Children from age 5 through 17 shall be enrolled

and shall attend a public, private, parochial, or home school.

• Courts have held that in a highly mobile society such as ours, the need for the child to be educated outweighs other claims of individual freedom. Education has been likened to immunization.

Penalty for harboring non-attendance

• Arrest• Fine up to $500

Compulsory attendance and religion

• May compulsory attendance be waived for religious reasons? (Post-eighth grade)

• yes--Wisconsin v. Yoder, 1972

• 300-year year old religion, secondary grades only

Excused absences

• ACA 6-18-222, Act 473 of 1989 and Acts 876 and 572

• Personal illness of student, official school-sponsored activities, court appearances, medical appointments, serious illness in the immediate family, death in the immediate family, other circumstances that the district may determine.

Mandatory reporting of non-attendance

• Each public, private, or parochial school shall notify the Department of Finance and Administration whenever a student 14 years of age or older is no longer in school.

• Suspend driver’s license! Now!

Parens patriae

• . . . Meaning that the state is father to all persons and has the responsibility to provide for the commonwealth and individual’s welfare.

• Child must be in school somewhere.

Home schooling in Arkansas

• Over 8, 000 students• When parents sign,

they give up all rights to public education, include special education.

• ACA 6-15-503 parents give written notice to superintendent

Home schooling in Arkansas (2)

• If child attempts to re-enter a public school after being home schooled, (1)he is subject to any leveling tests of the local school district (2) no graduation for at least 9 months

Married children (minors)

• Do compulsory attendance laws apply to married children (minors)?

• No• Louisiana v. Priest

Religious opposition to vaccination?

• Is a religious opposition to vaccination a defense to compulsory attendance?

• No• People v. McLane

Immunization/compulsory attendance/14th amendment

• May parents object to immunization on the basis of the 14th amendment? [Equal protection clause]

• No• Jacobsen v.

Massachussetts

In re Gault (1967)

• U. S. Supreme Court (387 U. S. 1) declared that in criminal cases, minors have the same rights as adults.

• The minor offenses that most minors do in school are more easily classified as criminal than as civil violations.

Modesty and PE participation

• Must students wear a school-designated uniform to physical education classes?

• Mitchell v. McCall

• Two answers since these are two questions:

• 1. They do not have to wear the school uniform

• 2. They will go to p. e.

Freedom of speech• Tinker v. Des Moines. • Is wearing armbands

part of freedom of speech? Yes, if the district cannot show that this is immediately disruptive.

• Gang dress not protected--Guzick v. Drebus, 431 F.3d.594

• Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 108 U. s. 562.

• Student publications may be restrained if the district believes that the material would be disruptive to school work, cause general disorder, or invade the rights of others

Goss v. Lopez (1975)

• Established classes of disciplinary suspensions and gave rules of administration of each

• Less than ten days

• More than ten days

• 419 U. S. 565

< 10 days . . . . . > 10 days

• Student to be given oral or written notice of the charges against him, and, if he denies those,

• Explanation of authorities’ evidence

• Opportunity to present his side of the story

• All of these <----- and• Right to retain counsel• Confront and cross

examine witnesses• Right to testify• Right to Appeal

Ingraham v. Wright (1977)

• Corporal punishment not prohibited under Eighth Amendment as cruel or unusual

• Should be moderate, not in anger, away from students, with a professional as witness (today see the state laws as well), and with enough time for the student to compose himself before resuming class

• 430 U. S. 651

Honig v. Doe (592 U. S. 108)

• Students may not be suspended for handicap-related behaviors but may be suspended for non-handicap-related misbehaviors.

• There are four provisions under this case

• 1988

Honig v. Doe

• Schools may temporarily exclude a handicapped student for up to ten days who poses an immediate threat to himself or others.

• During this temporary suspension, the school should initiate an IEP review to seek an appropriate placement following the suspension.

Honig v. Doe

• The school can use the time during the suspension to seek assistance from the courts.

• A temporary exclusion of up to ten days (Goss v Lopez) is not considered a “change of placement,” therefore the school is not required to provide services during the exclusion.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (P.L. 93-380)

• Rights concerning personnel files

• No hidden files• Parents have a right to

their children’s files, including copies of everything at reasonable cost, within 45 days

• Files otherwise protected

• Types of files:• 1. Student files. All

students have these. Promotions, immunizations, discipline

• 2. Special ed. audit file

• 3. Sp. Ed, teacher file

Search and seizure (1)

• School authorities stand in loco parentis or in the place of a parent.

• Not an unlimited authority to search students, but more than a peace officer.

• Teachers are not officers.

Search and seizure (2)

• In general, the more invasive the search, and the less reasonable cause, the more risky the search.

• Don’t be like the eighth grade teacher who just enjoyed going through girls’ purses!

Reasonable and unreasonable searches

• Reasonable--smell of cigarette on the student, prompting the search of her purse to see if she was carrying cigarettes (New Jersey v. T. L. O., 105 S. Ct. 733, 1985

• Unreasonable--checking her purse just to see if she had anything

From reasonable to probable cause

• In New Jersey v. T. L. O., the initial search for cigarettes disclosed drug related items; police were called.

• Search must be reasonable from its inception; from there on, what is found is found.

What if you see a student smoking something, which he

stashes in his pants?

• Tell him to go to the office with you; keep him in your plain sight every last second of the trip. Tell office personnel that he has hidden something suspicious in his clothes; tell principal, with student still in sight; let him (her) call the police; let the police do the strip search, if there is going to be one.

Locker searches

• Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.

• Expectation of privacy (Katz v. United States 389 U. S. 347, 1967) does not exist with student lockers.

• School is not a person’s domain

Locker searches (2)

• People v. Overton (Court of Appeals of New York, 1967) . School officials have not only the right but the obligation to search lockers on reasonable suspicion.

• Right probably extends to student autos

• Commonwealth v. Carey, 554 N. E.2d 1199, search of a student’s locker for a gun based upon two student’s testimony upheld.

Act 567 of 1995

• Arkansas school officials, upon receipt of information, may search any school-owned property for unlawful contraband without a search warrant.

• 1-year expulsion for weapons on campus

Safest route for schools• Provide instruction--don’t get caught up in

trying to “straighten out” people.

• Inform students in the first minutes of school about lockers and autos being searchable.

• Do searches in private, not in front of other students. Isolate the search scene from anyone not directly connected with this activity. No interruptions. Keep the student and property in plain sight. Same-sex investigators.