EdLawConnect Blog

Concerned about an instructor’s behavior and teaching methodologies, a student complains through email to a college.  Is the instructor entitled to a copy of the student’s email in its entirety?  A county office of education deletes emails during the course of routine network maintenance.  Is a parent entitled to electronic copies of emails regarding a student?  These are just two of many scenarios that ...

On July 2, 2013, the United States Treasury Department announced that implementation and enforcement of employer mandates under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Act”) will be delayed by one year.  Until today, school district employers were preparing to be in compliance with the Act starting on January 1, 2014.  As a result of today’s announcement, the new deadline for compliance is ...

It is widely accepted that the time and cost to terminate a permanent certificated employee in California is excessive and presents an undue burden on public school employers.  Accordingly, the Legislature is presently considering changes to the teacher termination process.  While it is premature to speculate whether the changes under consideration will improve or further complicate the process, here is a brief overview of the existing process.

On May 31, 2013, the California Court of Appeal reversed the conviction of Karen Christiansen for violation of Government Code section 1090, which generally prohibits public officials from being financially interested in contracts they make in their official capacity. (People v. Christiansen, see decision here.) Because the Court concluded that Christiansen was an independent contractor, not an ...

The Division of the State Architect has recently implemented a new procedure for Field Act and access compliance certification of K-14 projects, beginning June 1, 2013. There is really only one change in the law — a bar to potentially conflicting interests in contracting for inspection services — which will be the focus of this post. A future post will provide details about the new DSA job card process.

The ...

The California Public Records Act (CPRA) provides for the disclosure of public records kept by the state, local agencies, school districts and community college districts, and county offices of education. On April 19, 2013, the Commission on State Mandates (Commission) adopted a statement of decision and parameters and guidelines regarding state-mandated reimbursement for certain costs local ...

Because of the way school facilities and technology funding has been separated and compartmentalized, we tend to think in narrow terms about how we approach new construction and modernization projects, information technology (IT) procurement, and IT system planning. There are major benefits to be drawn from a coordinated approach to these issues, which involves a comprehensive plan for IT structure. With this plan, we can design more energy efficient IT systems as our networks and data centers are built into our facilities and as we procure the equipment we plug into our networks.

On May 6, 2013, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied a district’s motion to dismiss an attorney’s fees action in J.B. v. San Jose Unified School District, 2013 WL 1891398, No. C-12-06358 SI (N.D. Cal. May 6, 2013). This ruling is particularly relevant to all school districts which are currently receiving increasingly more requests for independent education evaluations (“IEEs”) than in past years. In short, the Court ruled that the withdrawal of the San Jose Unified School District’s due process hearing complaint to defend its own evaluation may have conferred on J.B. (“Student”) “prevailing party” status which would entitle him to reasonable attorneys’ fees.

The Division of the State Architect is about to implement a new procedure for Field Act and access compliance certification of K-14 projects beginning June 1, 2013. There is really only one change in the law, which is a bar to potentially conflicting interests in contracting for inspection services, which will be the focus of this post. A future post will provide details about the new DSA job card process.

The ...

A previous blog touched upon recent trends in student discipline and summarized certain legislation pending at that time, which signaled a policy move toward reducing the exclusion of students from school as a result of suspensions and expulsions and, instead, implementing alternative means of discipline.

Of the four main bills introduced last year – SB 1235, AB 1729, AB 2537, and AB 2242 – only two were ...