EdLawConnect Blog

Despite YouTube’s Popularity with School-Age Youth, Teachers Should Think Twice Before Asking Students to Upload Class Projects to YouTube

Several studies have reported that YouTube is the most popular social media site among teenagers. Some studies and articles report teens and “tweens” prefer YouTube to both traditional television and other social networking sites.

In light of YouTube’s ...

The current measles outbreak in Southern California has underscored the importance of schools maintaining current and complete lists of students with immunization exemptions on file.

Last month a California Court of Appeal held that while electronic signatures are valid on employment arbitration agreements in California, if an employee disputes an electronic signature, the employer bears the burden of proving the employee electronically signed the document. (Ruiz v. Moss Brothers Auto Group (2014) 2014 WL 7335221.) This decision can guide K-12 school districts and community college ...

In a recent decision, Pittsburg Unified School District v. S.J. Amoroso Construction Co., Inc. (December 22, 2014), the California Court of Appeal affirmed that public agencies have the right to unilaterally declare a default under a construction contract and demand a distribution of securities retained by escrow.  The Court based its decision on Public Contract Code section 22300, which provides that once a public agency sends a proper notice of default, it has the right to withdraw securities held in an escrow retention account “immediately upon its own determination” if it determines that a contractor has defaulted on the construction agreement. The key issue confirmed by the Court is that a public agency may unilaterally determine that a contractor defaulted on its obligations under a construction agreement without judicial determination, and thus, may unilaterally withdraw retention proceeds from an escrow account.

ConnectEDU, a college and career advising startup that holds the personal information of millions of students, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2014. ConnectEDU developed college- and career-planning sites where students could create personal profiles. As a result, ConnectEDU held a considerable amount of personally identifiable information including students’ names, dates of birth ...

The California Labor Commissioner has posted a template  pursuant to the new sick leave law, the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Family Act of 2014. As explained in our , the new law applies to employees who work at least 30 hours per calendar year and are not provided with sick leave under a collective bargaining agreement.  A poster describing the sick leave rights is required under amended Labor Code section 247.

Recently Governor Brown vetoed Assembly Bill 1550, which would have added 30 days to the already rigorous impasse procedures under the Educational Employee Relations Act (Government Code §§ 3540, et. seq.; “EERA”) impairing the ability of public employers to unilaterally implement a last, best, and final offer after completion of the statutory impasse process.

In these strained economic times, where governmental budgets can be stretched to their limits, public entities are often faced with unexpected financial exposure to claims and litigation.  Public entities can limit the scope of their exposure to monetary claims by simply adopting policies that shorten the time for presenting claims to a fraction of what California statutes of limitations would usually ...

California has adopted the Smarter Balanced Assessment System designed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, an organization formed to create assessments aligned to the Common Core academic content standards. This transition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative was initiated by Assembly Bill 484, signed by Governor Jerry Brown on October 2, 2013.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment ...

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“Section 504”), through its implementing regulations in Subpart D, requires that students with disabilities have the opportunity to equally participate in extracurricular activities, including after school sports and interscholastic programs. The Section 504 regulations specifically outline a school district’s obligation to provide extracurricular activities in “such a manner as is necessary to afford students with a disability an equal opportunity for participation in such services and activities.” (34 C.F.R. 104.37(a)(1).)