Justia Education Law Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court dismissed this appeal stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and the controversy over whether a mandate should be implemented requiring the state's schoolchildren to wear masks while in school, holding that this Court lacked jurisdiction.In June 2020, the state Department of Education, the state Commissioner of Education, and the Governor (collectively, Defendants) undertook to mandate that schoolchildren wear masks in school. Plaintiffs brought this lawsuit challenging the legality of Defendants' school mask mandate and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The Supreme Court granted summary judgment for Defendant, concluding that Plaintiffs were not entitled to relief. Plaintiffs appealed. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that because the Department repealed the school mask mandate while this appeal was pending, the appeal was moot. View "Conn. Freedom Alliance, LLC v. Dep't of Education" on Justia Law

The California Public Employment Relations Board (Board) refused to file an unfair labor practice complaint on behalf of plaintiff Rebecca Wu, a substitute teacher representing herself in propria persona, against real party in interest Twin Rivers United Educators (Union), a teachers’ union. In her unfair practice charge filed with the Board, Wu alleged the Union breached its duty to represent her in her claim against Twin Rivers Unified School District (School District), wherein she claimed to be misclassified as a substitute teacher. The Board declined to file a complaint against the Union based on Wu’s charge because Wu, as a substitute teacher, was not entitled to union representation given that substitute teachers were excluded from representation by virtue of the collective bargaining agreement between the Union and the School District. Wu argued she had a constitutional right to union representation as a misclassified teacher and as a substitute teacher. She further argued she had a statutory right to representation by the Union that could not be circumvented by a collective bargaining agreement. The Court of Appeal disagreed with Wu that she had a constitutional or statutory right to representation by the Union as an alleged misclassified employee or as a substitute teacher. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court’s order. View "Wu v. Public Employment Relations Bd." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, the mother of a minor child with special needs, brings this action for attorney’s fees under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). The IDEA allows parents who prevail in state administrative proceedings challenging their children’s individualized education programs to recover attorney’s fees in federal court. But Plaintiff did not file her claim for fees until almost two years after her administrative hearing, and the district court dismissed her case as untimely. The district court concluded that a standalone fees action like Plaintiff’s is most comparable to an IDEA claim for substantive judicial review of an adverse administrative determination. And because Virginia, where Plaintiff lives, sets a 180-day limitations period for such substantive IDEA claims, the court deemed her claim time-barred.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the IDEA contains no express statute of limitations for attorney’s fees actions, so courts must “borrow” an appropriate limitations period from state law. The court wrote that Va. Code Section 22.1-214(D), by allowing parties 180 days to seek substantive judicial review of IDEA due process hearings, provides an appropriate – even generous – analog to attorney’s fees actions under 20 U.S.C. Section 1415(i)(3)(B). The court also agreed with the district court that his 180-day limitations period does not begin to run until after the aggrieved party’s time to seek substantive review has expired, meaning that a party has 360 days from the date of the administrative decision to commence a fees action. View "Jemie Sanchez v. Arlington County School Board" on Justia Law

An assistant professor at a California public university submitted four articles on topics in her field of study to various academic journals unaffiliated with her university. All four of those articles were later either retracted or corrected by the journals, at least in part due to inaccurate references or text overlap from uncited sources. Soon after that, the professor left her position at the university. A third party investigating the article retractions sent the university a request under the California Public Records Act (CPRA) seeking certain postpublication communications between the professor, the university, and the journals regarding the retracted articles. The university determined the requested documents were subject to disclosure; the professor disagreed, filed a petition for writ of mandate, and sought a preliminary injunction to prevent disclosure. The trial court denied the professor’s motion for preliminary injunction, concluding she had not met her burden of establishing a likelihood of prevailing on the merits. Finding no abuse of discretion, the Court of Appeal affirmed: the requested communications qualified as public records under the CPRA, and the professor did not establish the records are otherwise exempt from disclosure. View "Iloh v. The Regents of the U. of Cal." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals affirming the decision of the trial court to grant a temporary injunction in favor of the Houston Independent School District prohibiting the Texas Education Agency Commissioner and his appointed conservator from continuing to supervise the school district pending a final trial, holding that the District was not entitled to injunctive relief.While law permits the Commissioner to assist in improving a school district's performance through a variety of remedial measures, in question in this case was under what circumstances the Commissioner may supervise the Houston Independent School District (the District). Based on the results of an accreditation investigation, the Commissioner notified the District that it planned to appoint a board of managers for the District. The District filed petition seeking a temporary injunction barring the Commissioner from taking regulatory actions against it because the Education Code did not authorize the planned remedial measures. The trial court granted the petition, and the court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed and directed the trial court to consider the Commissioner's plea to the jurisdiction, holding that the District's claims did not support a temporary injunction against the Commissioner and his conservator. View "Texas Education Agency v. Houston Independent School District" on Justia Law

Baro was an ESL teacher for Waukegan Community School District in 2019 when she signed a union membership form—a contract to join the union that represents teachers in the District. The form authorized the District to deduct union dues from her paychecks for one year. Baro alleged she learned later that she was not required to join the union. She tried to back out of the agreement. The union insisted that her contract was valid. The District continued deducting dues from her paychecks.Baro filed suit, arguing that the dues deduction violated her First Amendment rights under the Supreme Court’s 2019 “Janus: decision. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Baro voluntarily consented to the withdrawal of union dues. The enforcement of a valid private contract does not implicate her First Amendment rights. The “First Amendment protects our right to speak. It does not create an independent right to void obligations when we are unhappy with what we have said.” View "Baro v. Lake County Federation of Teachers Local 504, IFT-AFT" on Justia Law

Plaintiff enrolled in a Doctor of Education degree program at Grand Canyon University. Plaintiff claims that he did not complete his degree because, despite representing that students can finish the program in 60 credit hours, Grand Canyon makes that goal impossible with the aim of requiring students to take and pay for additional courses. Plaintiff also claims that he was not provided with the faculty support promised by Grand Canyon. According to Plaintiff Grand Canyon’s failure to provide dissertation support is designed to require students to take and pay for additional courses that would allow them to complete the dissertation. Plaintiff filed claims alleging breach of contract, intentional misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment. He also asserted claims under the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act. The district court dismissed the complaint in its entirety with prejudice under Rule 12(b)(6).   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s claims for violations of the ACFA, intentional misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment. The court reversed in part the dismissal of Plaintiff’s claims for breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The court explained that though Grand Canyon did not contractually promise Plaintiff that he would earn a doctoral degree within 60 credit hours, he has plausibly alleged that it did agree to provide him with the faculty resources and guidance he needed to complete his dissertation. Insofar as he asserts that Grand Canyon promised and failed to meaningfully provide him with the faculty support necessary to complete his dissertation, he has sufficiently alleged breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. View "Donrich Young v. Grand Canyon University, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Doe, a high-school student, suffers from a condition that makes her hypersensitive to the everyday sounds of eating food and chewing gum. Doe’s parents unsuccessfully requested that her school ban students from eating or chewing in her classes. They sued the Knox County Board of Education under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act. While considering their preliminary injunction motion, the district court dismissed the suit, reasoning that Doe’s parents could obtain the requested relief in administrative proceedings under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and had failed to exhaust administrative remedies under 20 U.S.C. 1415(l).The Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded. The IDEA provides relief only to students who need “specially designed instruction.” Because no ordinary English speaker would describe a ban on eating and chewing as “instruction,” her parents did not need to go through the IDEA’s review process to attempt to seek this ban under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. However, Knox County offered significant justification for its policy allowing students to eat in class at the magnet school that Doe chose to attend—a school designed to operate like a college–which the district court must consider in the first instance. View "Doe v. Knox County Board of Education" on Justia Law

Defendant, the School Board of St. Johns County (the “School Board”), is responsible for providing “proper attention to health, safety, and other matters relating to the welfare of students” within the St. Johns County School District (the “School District”). Plaintiff, is a transgender boy. The case involves the practice of separating school bathrooms based on biological sex. This appeal required the court to determine whether separating the use of male and female bathrooms in public schools based on a student’s biological sex violates (1) the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Const. amend. XIV, Sections 1, and (2) Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. The district court enjoined the School Board from prohibiting Plaintiff’s use of the male bathrooms and granted Plaintiff $1,000 in compensatory damages.   The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded the district court’s order. The court explained that commensurate with the plain and ordinary meaning of “sex” in 1972, Title IX allows schools to provide separate bathrooms on the basis of biological sex. That is exactly what the School Board has done in this case; it has provided separate bathrooms for each of the biological sexes. And to accommodate transgender students, the School Board has provided single-stall, sex-neutral bathrooms, which Title IX neither requires nor prohibits. Nothing about this bathroom policy violates Title IX. Further, the court wrote that whether Title IX should be amended to equate “gender identity” and “transgender status” with “sex” should be left to Congress—not the courts. View "Drew Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was a long-time teacher in the Evergreen School District #114 (District) in Vancouver, Washington. Before the 2019–2020 school year began, he attended two days of teacher training and brought with him a MAGA hat. The question, in this case, is whether the First Amendment was violated when a principal told Plaintiff he could not bring his Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat with him to teacher-only trainings on threat of disciplinary action and when the school board affirmed the denial of the teacher’s harassment complaint filed against the principal.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Defendants in Plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action. The panel first concluded that Plaintiff was engaged in speech protected by the First Amendment because the undisputed facts demonstrated that his MAGA hat conveyed a message of public concern, and he was acting as a private citizen in expressing that message. The record failed to establish, however, that the school district’s Chief Human Resource Officer, took any adverse employment action against Plaintiff, and for this reason, Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim against that defendant failed as a matter of law.   Further, any violation of Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights by the principal was clearly established where longstanding precedent held that concern over the reaction to controversial or disfavored speech itself does not justify restricting such speech. For these reasons, the panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the principal. View "ERIC DODGE V. EVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT #114, ET AL" on Justia Law