— In Colorado, the United States District Court held that summary judgment was inappropriate in a Title IX case involving student-on-student sexual harassment.  The case arose out of a series of incidents in which for several years male students would “grope, grab, or touch female students’ breasts as part of “Titty Touch Tuesday””… and slap or touch the butts of mostly female students as part of “Slap Ass Friday.””  Students tended not to report the assaults because, “it was so normalized that they assumed administrators knew it was happening.”  The court announced that, “schoo ..read more

— In New York, the Supreme Court, Appellate Division reversed a lower court ruling denying a motion for summary judgment dismissal of a case arising from injuries received by a student while participating in a game during gym class.  The game, called “Steal the Bacon,” required each student to wear “a belt with a detachable flag hanging from it… line up across from a student on the opposing team…(with) toy pigs located between them.”  While “running to grab one of the pigs and then racing with the pig in hand to cross a line without losing the flag,” the injured student collided with ..read more

— In Indiana, the Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed termination of parental rights of a mother based upon school safety concerns.  The juvenile court ruled that there was a clear correlation between student’s dangerous behavior at school and the parent’s neglect, domestic abuse, and poor home conditions.  The incidents on campus included “physical and verbal aggression towards staff and students, threats of violence towards himself and others, and a refusal to follow directions.”  In one incident, the student “attempted to take the school resource officer’s gun.”  On app ..read more

— In Kentucky, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky affirmed the dismissal of a case brought against a school based upon qualified immunity.  The lawsuit arose out of an incident in which a school employee on the security team attempted to physically restrain a student when the student attempted to leave school building while in a state of intoxication.  The appellate court ruled that “qualified official immunity” was appropriate under Kentucky law because the “security monitor’s duty to provide a safe school environment was discretionary rather than ministerial.”  On this point the ..read more

— In Colorado, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed a student’s adjudication of delinquency for possession of a handgun as second-time juvenile offender and possession of a weapon on school grounds.  The court held that the search of the student conducted on school grounds in accordance with an individualized, weapons-related safety plan by a Behavioral Assessment Team was reasonable under Fourth Amendment.  The appellate court reasoned that because of the nature of the multi-agency threat assessment process, implementation of the safety plan was complete in itself.  “Additional ..read more

— In Washington State, the Supreme Court of Washington affirmed that school officials violated the statutory procedural rights of a student by indefinitely suspending him.  Administrators expelled the high school student on an emergency basis for violating its “gang contract,” e.g., wearing clothing affiliated with a gang.  The student also was cited for fighting another student on campus.  Later, officials “converted (the) emergency expulsion into a long-term suspension.”  The notice of this shift stated, “(d)ue to this situation and the involvement in others, aka victim o ..read more

— In Kentucky, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky affirmed the application of qualified immunity in a case involving a student who while “in his fifth-period civics class, drank an alcoholic beverage from a water bottle” and when being taken to the administrative office attempted to leave campus, causing the SRO to take the student down to the floor in a restraint hold.  The appellate court noted that dismissal of the case base upon  qualified immunity was appropriate because, “(p)roviding a safe school environment is “a general and continuing supervisory duty … which depends upon cons ..read more

— In Florida, the District Court of Appeal of Florida upheld the adjudication of a juvenile for “written threats to kill or do bodily harm,” in a case involving a social media message.  The juvenile posted a violent image on Snapchat and sent it to a friend with text at the bottom that said, “Don’t go to school tomorrow.”  The appellate court agreed with the lower court that the juvenile “intended the Snapchat as a threat, and the recipient would have understood it to be a threat based on the information revealed at trial.”  Significantly, the appellate court ruled that the stat ..read more

— In New Mexico, the Court of Appeals of New Mexico held that the actions of school officials leading up to the physical injury a student who returned to school after post-hip surgery fell within the waiver of immunity under state law.  The parent, “provided the school two separate doctor’s notes prohibiting his son from participating in any sports or physical education.”  Even so, “on (the student’s) first day back, his homeroom teacher allowed him to go outside during the recess break,” where he fell, sustaining “a serious injury to his recently operated-on hip.”   The ap ..read more

— In Michigan, the United States District Court held that school officials did not violate the rights of a student who was expelled after lying to her parents about bathroom searches that were conducted to deter vaping in schools.  The school policy required officials to conduct “a brief look underneath the bathroom stall partitions (while standing outside the stall in the) public areas in the bathroom to see if multiple students were (vaping) in the same stall together.  The student told her parents that “the assistant principal had approached (her) stall and looked into it while (s ..read more