Justia Education Law Opinion Summaries

Charlie has Type 1 diabetes, managed with an insulin pump, a personal diabetes manager, and a continuous glucose monitor. Before Charlie entered kindergarten, his parents worked with the school district to develop a “504 plan” to enable him to attend public school. Charlie’s plan incorporated doctor’s orders for how insulin doses and snacks would be administered at school; required his school to train three “Diabetes Personnel;” and that all staff members who would interact with Charlie be given general training about diabetes. The school hired a licensed nurse, to perform Charlie’s care and held one general training session and one session specific to Charlie’s equipment, attended by almost all staff who would interact with Charlie. In Charlie’s second year, the parents complained to the Department of Education that the school was violating the 504 plan by failing to have three Trained Diabetes Personnel and refusing to allow the nurse to adjust insulin doses on a case-by-case basis. A mediated agreement required the school to conduct training for three nurses and generally required the school to follow the 504 plan. The parents continued to be dissatisfied and moved Charlie to a private school with no medically trained staff and no formal plan for his diabetes care. The district court rejected their suit under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 794, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12132. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding neither intentional discrimination nor failure to reasonably accommodate Charlie’s diabetes.View "CTL v. Ashland Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, parents of minor children who reside in the District, filed suit challenging a resolution to exempt the District from the Public School Choice Act of 2013, Ark. Code Ann. 6-18-1901 et seq. Plaintiffs alleged that the District violated their constitutional rights when it resolved, for the 2013-2014 school year, to opt-out of the Act. The district court denied a preliminary injunction and plaintiffs appealed. The court held that the appeal was moot where the time period in which the requested relief would have been effective has expired and the controversy was not capable of repetition, yet evading review. View "Adkisson, et al. v. Blytheville Sch. Dist. #5" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the mandatory uniform policy at their children's public elementary school (RGES) under the First Amendment. The court concluded that RGES's inclusion of the motto "Tomorrow's Leaders" on its uniform shirts compelled speech because it mandated the written motto on the uniform shirts. The court also concluded that the exemption for uniforms of "nationally recognized youth organizations such as Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts on a regular meeting days" was content-based. Accordingly, the court concluded that strict scrutiny review applied. Because the district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), RGES was not required to make any showing regarding its justifications for including the written motto or the exemption in the policy. Further, plaintiffs were not given the opportunity to produce any countervailing evidence. The court reversed and remanded for the district court to determine whether defendants' countervailing interest was sufficiently compelling to justify requiring the written motto and the exemption.View "Frudden v. Pilling" on Justia Law

The Board appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs, mother and son, requiring the Board to reimburse the mother for the cost of the placement of her son, who was diagnosed with autism, in a private school. A hearing officer later found that the Board failed to offer a free appropriate public education to the son before his third birthday, as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(1)(A), and that the Board instead consented to the son's placement at Mitchell's Place, a preschool that provided services and education to autistic children. The district court affirmed. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it weighed the equities and concluded that the County must reimburse plaintiffs. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Blount Cty. Bd. of Educ., et al. v. Bowens, et al." on Justia Law

In 1993, Dr. Dargie was a student at the UT College of Medicine. In 1994, Middle Tennessee Medical Center agreed to pay Dargie’s tuition, fees, and other reasonable expenses for attending UT. After graduation and completion of his residency, Dargie was required to repay MTMC’s grant by either working as a doctor in the medically underserved community of Murfreesboro for four years or repaying two times the uncredited amount of all conditional award payments he received. MTMC paid UT $73,000 on Dargie’s behalf. After completing his medical training in 2001, Dargie chose to practice in Germantown, near Memphis. In 2002, Dargie repaid $121,440.02. In 2005, the Dargies filed an amended tax return for 2002, claiming they had “inadvertently omitted an ordinary and necessary business expense” on their Schedule C for the $121,440 repayment. The IRS disallowed the deduction under I.R.C. 162. The Dargies sued. The district court granted summary judgment to the government, finding that the repayment was a personal expense and, regardless, no deduction would be allowed under I.R.C. 265(a)(1) because the amount was allocable to income the Dargies had received tax-free. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding the repayment a personal expense.View "Dargie v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a tenured teacher, was dismissed based on charges that he had physically and abusively disciplined his students. Plaintiff contended that the Board's failure to consider or formulate written charges before initiating his dismissal nullified all further proceedings. The trial court subsequently denied plaintiff's petition for writ of mandate, finding that the board's failure to consider or formulate charges before initiating plaintiff's dismissal was a nonsubstantive procedural error that was not prejudicial. The court concluded that plaintiff's informal notification of charges, eventual receipt of written charges, representation by counsel, involvement in the discovery process and participation in a four-day evidentiary hearing confirmed he was provided notice and a full opportunity to oppose the charges. Plaintiff has not shown the board's reliance on oral presentation of charges in initiating his dismissal undermined his preparation or otherwise prejudiced his defense. Accordingly, the trial court did not err by denying his mandate petition and the court affirmed the judgment. View "DeYoung v. Com. on Professional Competence" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants alleging that her teenage daughter - who suffers from severe emotional, mental, and physical disabilities - was sexually assaulted by another student while in defendant's care. The district court concluded that plaintiff's amended complaint failed to state a plausible claim for relief and dismissed with prejudice. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of her motions for partial reconsideration and for leave to amend. Because plaintiff failed to demonstrate "extraordinary circumstances" warranting the reopening of the final judgment, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying her motion for partial reconsideration. Further, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff's motion for leave to amend her complaint. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court.View "M. G. v. St. Lucie Cty. Sch. Bd., et al." on Justia Law

The Educational Rate Program, a subsidy program authorized by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, is implemented by the FCC, which established USAC, a private non-profit corporation, to administer the Program. USAC provides subsidies to eligible school districts for the cost of telecommunication services. FCC regulations require that providers offer schools the “lowest corresponding price” (LCP) for their services: the “lowest price that a service provider charges to non-residential customers who are similarly situated to a particular school, library, or library consortium for similar services.” Heath operates a business that audits telecommunications bills and was retained by Wisconsin school districts. Heath found that certain schools paid much higher rates than others for the same services. As a result, many districts did not receive the benefit of LCP and the government paid subsidies greater than they should have been. Heath informed Wisconsin Bell of the discrepancy, but it refused to provide the more favorable pricing. Heath also learned of an even lower price charged to the Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA). Heath filed a qui tam lawsuit. The government declined to intervene. The district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding that the public disclosure bar applied and that Heath was not saved by the original source exception, because the DOA pricing was on its website. The Seventh Circuit reversed, stating that the claim was not based on the DOA website information and that Heath was not an opportunist plaintiff who did not contribute significant information. View "Heath v. WI Bell, Inc." on Justia Law

John and Jane Doe, the parents Susan Doe, a transgender girl, filed a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission alleging that Regional School Unit 26 (RSU 26) had violated the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA) by excluding Susan from the communal girls’ bathroom at elementary and middle school. The Commission found reasonable grounds to believe discrimination had occurred. Thereafter, the Does and the Commission filed a complaint in the superior court asserting claims for unlawful discrimination in education (Count I) and unlawful discrimination in a place of public accommodation (Count II) on the basis of sexual orientation. The superior court granted RSU 26’s motion for summary judgment on all counts. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the superior court, holding that where it has been clearly established that a student’s psychological well-being and educational success depend on being permitted to use the communal bathroom consistent with her gender identity, denying the student access to the appropriate bathroom constitutes sexual orientation discrimination in violation of the MHRA. Remanded for entry of summary judgment for the Does and the Commission. View "Doe v. Reg’l Sch. Unit 26" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair for mobility, filed suit against the District, contending that he could not fully enjoy football games because of the unavailability of wheelchair accessible seating. The court concluded that Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12131-12165, does not a require a public entity to structurally alter public seating at a high school football field, where the seating was constructed prior to the ADA's enactment, and the school district provides program access to individuals who use wheelchairs. In this case, the District provided plaintiff with program access to the football games and plaintiff failed to establish that the District excluded him from a public program. Accordingly, plaintiff's claim failed under Title II of the ADA and the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the District. View "Daubert v. Lindsay USD" on Justia Law