FYI
6 EDCAL March 19 , 2018
Kneeling at high school game ruled free speech
Lozano Smith Attorneys at Law reports a federal district court in California has granted a preliminary injunction blocking a school district ’ s policy requiring student athletes to stand during the national anthem at school sporting events .
The Southern District of California court ruled that kneeling in silent protest is a form of student symbolic speech protected under the First Amendment . The ruling came in a specific case involving the first game of the 2017 varsity football season , which was played at the plaintiff student ’ s school . The senior , designated in the case as “ V . A .,” performed a silent protest by kneeling during the national anthem .
After doing the same at the team ’ s second game , which was played at an Arizona high school , students from the opposing team ’ s school approached students from plaintiff ’ s school , made racial slurs , threatened to force the plaintiff to stand , and sprayed water on the students , striking a nearby cheerleader .
After receiving feedback from the community , parents and staff , which included concerns about safety , the superintendent issued a memorandum to all of the district ’ s coaches with a new directive requiring student athletes to stand during the national anthem . The memorandum added that kneeling , sitting or any similar form of political protest could result in removal from the team and from subsequent athletic teams for the remainder of the school year .
The court granted a preliminary injunction in the student ’ s favor . In doing so , it relied on the U . S . Supreme Court ’ s preeminent student speech opinion , Tinker v . Des Moines Independent Community School District , which established the principle that students do not shed their free speech rights in school and may exercise such rights absent a material and substantial disruption to the educational environment .
Like the students in the Tinker case , who wore black armbands in silent protest of the Vietnam War , the California student plaintiff ’ s silent kneeling did not rise to a level of material interference with or substantial disruption of school activities . The court explained that any threat to student safety was diminished by the district ’ s agreement to no longer play the Arizona school in sports .
While the preliminary injunction was issued by a federal district court and is thus not binding on all California school districts , the court ’ s reasoned analysis appears well supported by legal authority and reinforces the idea that , when it comes to student free speech , a school has less deference to restrict speech that expresses a student ’ s personal opinion . Notably , the V . A . ruling is the first of its kind with regard to K-12 students since the recent spate of silent protests that players have made during professional and college sporting events .
For more information about this ruling or on addressing student free speech rights in general , please contact an attorney at one of Lozano Smith ’ s eight offices statewide , www . lozanosmith . com / contact . php .
SEL
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SEL support and guidance , thus creating a distributive counseling model .
In Advisory , all subject areas are supported along with students ’ social , emotional , physical , and overall well-being and development . Personalization and equity are stressed in Advisory to make it a fair and enriching experience for both the students
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and teachers . Moreover , Advisory imbeds accountability for every child on campus .
This teaching and learning structure builds capacity of content teachers to support students in all subject areas . The opportunity to lead the same cohort of middle school students over three years is an ideal real-life long-term professional development experience for a teacher . It is essentially an integrated three-year PD cycle to observe the metamorphosis of adolescent students from day one in middle school to
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the final days before high school , supporting and monitoring their growth along the way .
Advisory has become the favored class of many of our students and teachers due to the SEL focus . This class is truly the key to meeting the needs of the whole child . If we want students to earn passing grades and proficient / advanced test scores , then we must provide optimal SEL and address the barriers that may impede their learning , scores , safety and success in school .
Advisory teachers become mentors for
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students through all types of challenges that may go unnoticed otherwise . Our students need this critical SEL time and space in the school day , and we must honor their personal stories , struggles and questions about life in middle school and beyond .
Readers may be interested in the following LAUSD Office of Communications ( 2017 , April 28 ) entry , “ 5 District middle schools earn prestigious WASC accreditation ,” accessible at https :// goo . gl / HkwbGa .
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FYI
Nominations are now open for ACSA ' s Exemplary Woman in Education Award . The award recognizes an outstanding woman school leader and is bestowed at the annual Women in School Leadership Forum , which will take place this year Sept . 26-28 in Newport Beach .
Nomination deadline is Aug . 17 for this high honor . An online nomination form is available on the ACSA website at www . acsa . org / womensaward .
SUSPENSION
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urbanicity and region .
The report ’ s authors are J . Luke Wood , dean ’ s distinguished professor of education , co-director of the Community College Equity Assessment Lab , San Diego State University ; Frank Harris III , professor of postsecondary education and co-director of
CCEAL ; and Tyrone Howard , professor of education and director of the Black Male Institute , UCLA . The entire report can be downloaded at https :// cceal . org .
The UCLA BMI examines issues of race , gender and opportunities to learn in P-20 learning environments and beyond . The CCEAL supports community colleges with research , assessment , and training activities that support the success of historically underserved students of color .
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