About the Course

The University of Iowa is offering a graduate level course focusing on an understanding of the impact of the law on educational practice. The primary course focus will be on legal rights and responsibilities of K-12 students and school staff.

Contents

The course is taught through an interactive format utilizing a variety of teaching methodologies, with emphasis on application of law concepts, relevant court decisions, and state statues to K-12 public school situations. In addition to a required textbook, which provides extensive access to actual edited court decisions, materials and additional communication will be available through the course e-mail listserv. 

Course Topics

• Introduction to constitutional concepts

• Tuition, Fees, and Residency Requirements
• Flag Salute
• Role of Student Prayer and Religious Convictions
• Compulsory Attendance
• Curriculum and Instructional Program
• Student Records, Testing, and Promotion
• School Rules and School Disciplinary Authority
• Student Rights of Speech, Expression, and Publications
• Student Discipline, Corporal Punishment, and Searches
• Special Education Issues Including Discipline
• Intentional Torts, Negligence, and Educational Malpractice
• Teacher Certification and Termination
• Teacher Rights
• Discrimination in Employment

Class Overview

The purpose of this class is to provide students with an understanding of legal situations that arise in K-12 public schools. The class is presented in a series of assignments (described in Assignments) with each assignment covering different topics of school law. 

Each assignment includes textbook reading, readings from the Instructor's Supplemental, and Application Supplement (described in Course Requirements under Course Procedures). Class time is principally devoted to interactive class discussion of legal concepts corresponding to the lesson's assigned readings and case studies from the application supplement.

Assignments
 

Course organization
 

The class is presented through a series of 25 assignments. Each assignment covers different topics of school law. Most textbook readings will involve actual edited court decisions.

Assignment A: Introduction – Topics include overview of the course, functions of the courts, structure of state and federal courts, and constitutional concepts as they apply to public and nonpublic schools.

Assignment B: Tuition and Fees; and Residency – Topics include difference between "free public schools" and "tuition-free schools;" statutory interpretation; Equal Protection Clause; school residence tests under Iowa law; and guardianship establishment for student residency.

Assignment C: Flag Salute; Religion – Topics include meditation and prayer in public schools; accommodating and protecting students' religious convictions; application of Equal Access Amendment and First Amendment issues; and Free Exercise Clause.

Assignment D: Compulsory Attendance – Topics include public policy reasons and common exceptions to compulsory attendance; effects and precedents established by Yoder; and home instruction.

Assignment E: Instructional Program – Topics include legal context of school's role as "a marketplace of ideas"; and authority of state and local school boards over curriculum requirements.

Assignment F: Curriculum – Topics include creation science and the "Lemon Test;" sex education in schools; factors limiting teacher's teaching of content and methodology; and teaching of evolution in the public schools.

Assignment G: Student Testing and Promotion – Topics include grades and diplomas; student competency tests and violations to the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause; and tracking and ability grouping.

Assignment H: School Rules and Out of School Conduct – Topics include constitutional due process (procedural and substantive); legal criteria of a valid school rule; and school disciplinary authority of students' acts committed out of school.

Assignment I: Due Process – Topics include liberty rights; property rights; and constitutional procedural due process requirements involved in short term and long term student suspensions.

Assignment J: Corporal Punishment – Topics include constitutional due process requirements and educators' legal responsibilities for corporal punishment; liberty right; substantive due process; and situations for hearing provision with corporal punishment.

Assignment K: Student Speech and Expression – Topics include hair and dress codes; criteria for student discipline of speech and expressions activities; difference between protected and unprotected student speech; and students' rights interpreted under Tinker and Fraser decisions.

Assignment L: Student Publications – Topics include prior review and prior restraint of unofficial student publications; changes in legal interpretations; student speech and teacher speech brought about by Kulmeier; and Iowa Code on school control of student speech, expression, and publications.

Assignment M: Student Searchers – Topics include school situations requiring probable cause and reasonable cause in search of students; two pronged reasonableness test for search of students; student searches involving sniffing dogs or random urinalysis testing; and Iowa's statute on student searches and relevant court decisions.

Assignment N: Special Education – Topics include free and appropriate education; Individual Education Plan (I.E.P.); Section 504 and ADA; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (I.D.E.A.); role of parents; procedural safeguards; and comparison of Iowa and Federal legislation; and regular classroom placement determination.

Assignment O: Special Education Issues – Topics include discipline and expulsion of special education students; functional behavioral assessment; behavior intervention plan; manifestation determination; private school placement; least restrictive environment; related services; and stay-put.

Assignment P: Intentional Torts – Topics include intentional torts; sexual harassment of students; and Iowa's child abuse reporting.

Assignment Q: Negligence – Topics include negligence and the defenses for claims of negligence; contributory and comparative negligence; assumption of the risk; and sovereign immunity.

Assignment R: Educational Malpractice; Governmental Immunity - Topics include claims of educational malpractice and the responsibility of school districts to defend and indemnity employees.

Assignment S: Defamation and Student Records - Topics include defamation criteria; defenses to defamation claims; and access to and confidentiality of students records.

Assignment T: Teacher Licensure – Topics include teaching contracts and licensure; teacher residency requirements; and elements of a teaching contract.

Assignment U: Teacher Termination – Topics include teacher tenure; reduction-in-force; impairment of contract; legal status of the homosexual in the teaching profession; "just cause" for termination in Iowa; and grounds for termination for out-of-school conduct.

Assignment V: Teacher Dismissal-Due Process – Topics include staff dismissal and due process; and property and liberty interests protected by the Due Process Clause.

Assignment W: Teacher Freedoms – Topics include situations and limitations of teacher's exercise of protected free speech; legal status of teacher dress codes; staff member's right of privacy in searches conducted in public school; and political activity.

Assignment X: Discrimination in Employment - Race – Topics includes affirmative action, Equal Protection; differentiation between "disparate treatment" and "disparate impact analysis" in discrimination in employment cases; and reverse discrimination.

Assignment Y: Discrimination in Employment - Sex, Age, Handicap, Gender, and Religion – Topics include Equal Pay Act; Section 504; ADA; mandatory age retirement; "reasonable accommodations" for employees with disabilities and religious rights of employees; age discrimination remedies; and limitations for mandatory maternity leave.

Course Procedures

Information on class rules, evaluation, complaint procedures, and class assignments is provided in the course syllabus. Listed under the class assignment for that week are required readings from the textbook along with relevant court cases; important concepts, terms and phrases, and student learning objectives.

In addition to the textbook readings, there are assigned weekly reading materials from the Instructor's Supplement and Application Supplement to help students prepare for interactive class discussions and examinations.

Evaluation

Academic evaluation in the form of grades for three hours credit will be conducted as follows unless expressly altered by the Professor:

1. There will be three examinations during the course. The first will count 30%, and each of the last two 25% toward the final grade.
2. Approximately 20% of the final grade will be determined by the Professor's subjective evaluation of class participation (quality, not quantity), positive attitude, special assignments, and extra credit.
3. Extra credit may be achieved through one or more of the following:

a.  Successfully telling a joke or humorous anecdote about lawyers or educators (which the instructor has not previously told to the class). Success will be judged by the consensus of the class reaction to the joke or anecdote. Jokes and humorous anecdotes may come from any source, but if taken from copyrighted materials, the source must be provided. A written copy must be provided to the instructor on an 8 ½ x 11-inch sheet of paper.

b.  Volunteering and completing an oral presentation to the class as assigned or agreed to by the instructor. Such presentations will normally consist of court decisions or scholarly writings on subjects relevant to the class.

c.   Any other class-oriented project mutually agreed to by the student and instructor

Textbook

The Alexander and Alexander textbook is your primary source of information in this course. The book is available from Iowa Book and Supply, Iowa City, Iowa (http://www.iowabook.com/) or online (e.g., from Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com or from Get Textbooks.com at:  http://www.gettextbooks.com/isbn/053457744X/).

• Required. Alexander, K., and Alexander, M. D. (2005). American Public School Law, (Sixth Edition). Wadsworth Publishing: Belmont, CA.