EdLawConnect Blog

With much media fanfare, in July, 2015 the advocacy group Students Matter filed a lawsuit against 13 large school districts, alleging these districts are failing to comply with the provision of state law regarding the use of scores on state-mandated assessments in teacher evaluations.  AALRR represented five of the districts.  Yesterday Superior Court Judge Barry Goode ruled in favor of school districts in ...

While some predicted agency fees would be invalidated through this highly publicized lawsuit, the Supreme Court’s 4-4 split decision today in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association means California’s mandatory agency fees laws withstand the most recent challenge.

As we commented last October, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge from 10 California teachers alleging the mandatory ...

On September 2, 2014, a California appellate court upheld an order requiring a college math professor to undergo a “fitness for duty examination” (“FFD”) based on behavior that his colleagues considered erratic and threatening in nature.  The court also rebuffed the efforts of the professor’s attorneys to interject themselves into the workplace dispute by placing conditions on the FFD.  The ...

On July 21, 2014, Governor Jerry Brown announced he signed AB 2127 into law, adding Education Code section 35179.5 and amending section 49475 to limit full-contact football practices at the middle school and high school levels.

Under AB 2127, which takes effect January 1, 2015, drills involving game speed tackling are prohibited in the off-season and are limited to 90 minute sessions twice a ...

On July 22, 2014, two opinions concerning the Affordable Care Act were issued from two different United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. Both opinions analyzed the same lawsuit filed in two different courts. Both opinions reached conclusions that were diametrically opposed to one another.

The first opinion, Halbig v. Burwell, which was decided by a three member panel of the United States Court of Appeals ...

Article 11, Section 10 of the California Constitution prohibits public agencies from granting extra compensation to officers or employees after service has been rendered.  Employee salaries subject to collective bargaining are often not determined until later into the fiscal year. When an increase in employee salaries is negotiated during the school year, retroactive pay at the increased rate (or a ...

On April 12, 2012, the California Supreme Court issued its long awaited decision in Brinker Restaurant Corporation v. Superior Court regarding an employer's duty to authorize and permit non-exempt employees to take rest periods, to provide meal periods to non-exempt employees, and the timing of each. The Brinker court held while employers "must afford employees uninterrupted half-hour periods in which they are relieved of any duty or employer control and are free to come and go as they please," employers are not required to "police" meal breaks. Further, the Brinker court clarified the amount of rest period time an employee is entitled to based on the length of his or her work day, and the timing of the rest period. The Court explained, "employers are subject to a duty to make a good faith effort to authorize and permit rest breaks in the middle of each work period, but may deviate from that preferred course where practical considerations render it unfeasible." Importantly, the Brinker court held an employer is liable for wages for working during the meal period if the employer "knew or should have known" that the employee was working through the meal period.

The adoption of acceptable use policies to establish the nature and limits of employee and student access to and use of computer systems is by now a common practice. Once such policies are established, however, districts and county offices of education sometimes fail to review them to ensure they are current. In today’s rapidly changing technology environment, these policies can quickly become outdated in the face of new technologies and means of communication, the most recent examples including social networking, micro-blogging, and cloud computing.  It is important that acceptable use policies be kept current to address the impacts of new technologies.