News & Resources

On February 27, 2018, the SJC held in Cormier, et al. v. City of Lynn, et al., SJC-12323 (2018), that defendants the City of Lynn, the Lynn Public Schools, and several public employees were not liable under the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, G. L. c. 258, for claims arising from one public elementary school student being pushed down the stairs by another, resulting in his permanent paralysis. The student’s parents argued that the school district was negligent because staff had been informed about the bullying on multiple occasions but did nothing to stop it, eventually resulting in their son’s injuries. They also claimed that the school district had failed to implement its own anti-bullying policies. 

With the proliferation of surveillance cameras in schools and on school buses, video footage is increasingly being used by school districts in support of investigations into student disciplinary matters. In that context, school districts occasionally receive requests for a copy of surveillance tapes.  According to the Family Policy Compliance Office (“FPCO”), which has jurisdiction over the Family Education Rights Privacy Act (“FERPA”), surveillance tapes are not typically education records because they record an entire scene and are not intended to focus on any particular student.  As a result, they are generally not protected from disclosure as student records.  Depending on the circumstances, they may be protected from disclosure for other reasons under the Public Records Law.

On September 22, 2017, the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) issued a Dear Colleague Letter and Question and Answer document on complaints of sexual misconduct and violence. 

On June 8, 2017, Candice Jackson, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) purportedly sent to the agency’s regional directors a memorandum that changes the practices used to investigate civil rights violations. 

As noted in our March 2016 Client Alert, as part of Massachusetts’ Omnibus Substance Abuse Legislation, there were several action items for schools. One of those action items was the requirement that all public schools must file their policies regarding substance use and prevention and educating students about the dangers of substance abuse with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (“DESE”). According to Commissioner Mitchell Chester’s September 16, 2016 Weekly Update, by October 28, 2016 all public schools (including charter schools and vocational-technical schools) must accomplish the following:

On May 13, 2016, the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) and the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued a Dear Colleague Letter reinforcing their prior interpretation that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) and its implementing regulations prohibit discrimination based on a student’s gender identity, including discrimination based on a student’s transgender status.  OCR and the DOJ informed school districts that as a condition of receiving Federal funds, a school district must adhere to the Dear Colleague Letter.

On March 14, 2016, Governor Charlie Baker signed into law House Bill, No. 4056, “An Act relative to substance use, treatment, education and prevention” (“the Act”).  Several sections of the Act, which directly impact public schools, are summarized within.

On January 1, 2016, the revised regulations on physical restraint in public education programs, 603 CMR 46.00, will become effective.  On November 19, 2015, In anticipation of new requirements under these regulations, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (“DESE”) posted a new, electronic Restraint Reporting Form designed to log individual instances of restraint and track program restraint data on a linked spreadsheet.

In a decision in favor of the Weston Public Schools, the Supreme Judicial Court found that settlement agreements between a public school and parents of students who require special education services are exempt from the definition of public records under both the statutory and privacy exemptions to the public records law. This decision vacates a prior decision from the Superior Court.