What First Amendment rights to free speech do students have in the elementary school classroom? How can schools teach the essential values of kindness, tolerance, and respect for others? In our first-ever live episode, recorded at the Education Law Association's Annual Conference in front of a "live studio" audience, we discuss B.B. v. Capistrano Unified School District. This is a recent case involving a first-grade student who, after a lesson about Martin Luther King Jr., gave a “Black Lives Matter” drawing to her friend and was disciplined by the school for including the phrase "any life" on ..read more

What does the law say about the appropriate placement for students with disabilities? What happens when parents and schools disagree about a student’s IEP? Who's ready for more special education acronyms? We are because today we’re talking about when, under the IDEA, a PPT’s IEP, considering a student’s FBA and ATE, provides FAPE in the LRE. That’s right, we’re going to cover the interesting case of a young student with disabilities whose parents were not too pleased with his school’s determination of how much inclusion in the general education classroom was appropriate. This case wrestles wit ..read more

Can schools censor student speech that promotes illegal drug use? What authority do schools have to regulate student speech that contradicts the educational goals of the school? How do you celebrate your one-year anniversaries? In honor of Chalk and Gavel’s 1st anniversary, we’re going back about 20 years to cover a classic! This is a landmark Supreme Court case, Morse v Frederick… or as most of us call it, the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case! Stick around as we head up to Juneau, Alaska, as the 2002 Olympic torch heads through the town and high school students are allowed to go check it out as it pa ..read more

Can a school deny academic credit as part of school discipline for work that has already been completed? How far does a school’s authority go? At what point during the semester should you play it safe and leave your marijuana at home? In this episode, we go back to South Gibson High School in Indiana in 1998, where a zero-tolerance drug policy set off a chain of events that sparked a pretty interesting legal battle with some fascinating implications. We have a student who got caught with marijuana crumbs in his truck and was expelled in the last few days of the fall semester of his junior year ..read more

What happens when a teacher’s religious beliefs clash with a district's policy to support transgender students? When are schools legally required to accommodate teachers’ sincerely held religious beliefs? In this episode, we discuss Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corporation, a controversial case that rocked an Indiana school district. You’ll hear about John Kluge, a high school music teacher who challenged his district’s student name and pronoun policy. The policy required teachers to address students by the names and pronouns listed in the district’s database, and it allowed parents an ..read more

When can a school discipline a teacher for their social media use? What happens when a teacher’s problematic tweets go viral? Imagine waking up to an email detailing a teacher’s history of retweeting and commenting on some rather controversial posts. That's exactly what happened to a West Virginia school board’s communications director when one of the district’s high school teacher's Twitter activity sparked a firestorm in the community. In this episode, we're diving into the case of Durstein v. Alexander, a legal battle that challenges the boundaries of free speech for educators and explores ..read more

Welcome to our 25th episode! To celebrate, we invited Supreme Court and education law reporter Mark Walsh back to discuss the Supreme Court's 2023-24 Term and look forward to next year's docket. We discuss the Court's cases from this past year that could impact education, including O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier (which dealt with public employees blocking individuals from their social media accounts); Muldrow v. City of St. Louis (a case dealing with the question of when employee transfers trigger the nondiscrimination protections of Title VII); Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (a case that ..read more

What’s the difference between creative discipline and excessive punishment? How does a five-minute punishment set off six years of litigation? What does the law say about fastening students to trees? It's definitely frowned upon! But that’s exactly what happened in today’s case, Doe v. the Hawaii Department of Education. This is the story of how a vice principal got into a sticky situation by taping a student’s head to a tree. We got pretty attached to this case. We will not be masking any facts here. It turns out that this vice principal’s bark was just as bad as his bite. We're all rooting f ..read more

Can a state authorize a religious virtual charter school? Where is the line between the religious liberties of individuals and prohibitions on the government establishing a religion? Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day. I've got a beautiful feeling everything's Oklahoma today! In this episode, we’re talking about a recent case that made waves in Oklahoma. An application was submitted for a virtual charter school. But not just any virtual charter school. This was going to be a Catholic school. That's right, a Catholic virtual public charter school. This is the case of an atte ..read more

How and when should schools distinguish between teenage banter and offensive language? How does extensive media attention impact the handling of sensitive incidents in schools? In this episode, we tackle a case that you might have heard about. The story went viral and sent shockwaves through a Kansas City community. This is the case of Plaintiff A v Park Hill School District. You might know it as the incident where some students started a Change.org petition to reinstate slavery. The students were ultimately disciplined, and they challenged their discipline as violating their free speech, due ..read more