Scenario

I was asked to locate all of the legal issues in the following scenario.
You are the principal of a large, suburban high school and receive a call late one evening that one of your students has overdosed on a combination of heroin and over-the-counter cold medication and is in critical condition. The drug, known as “cheese,” has spread rapidly through your community, and you have heard rumors that a number of your students have been using it. News of the overdose travels quickly, and as you arrive at school the following morning you see a small group of students gathered outside, holding hands and praying. A teacher who also sees the group approaches and tells you that she thinks it would be appropriate for her to lead a school-wide prayer during a morning assembly. Later that morning, you receive a call from a local television station asking if you can verify the hospitalized student’s name and address, and provide a picture and copies of her attendance records and grades so they can do a feature on how the use of “cheese” affects academic performance and school attendance. At the end of the day, a small group of students comes into your office and tells you that they know of a student who sells “cheese” on campus during lunch and after school.

The first sentence of the scenario reads as follows:

You are the principal of a large, suburban high school and receive a call late one evening that one of your students has overdosed on a combination of heroin and over- the-counter cold medication and is in critical condition.

I found no issues with this statement because the caller was not identified. It could have been a parent or a friend of the student. Had the caller been identified, an offense may have been committed. However, not enough information was provided to detail an offense.

The first issue that stood out to me was in the following sentence:

The drug, known as “cheese,” has spread rapidly through your community, and you have heard rumors that a number of your students have been using it.

The final sentence in this scenario also falls under this topic.

At the end of the day, a small group of students comes into your office and tells you that they know of a student who sells “cheese” on campus during lunch and after school.

This statement leads me to believe that there is a school-wide problem with this drug and possibly others. I would attempt to avoid a witch-hunt scenario, but the problem really should be taken care of which can be done legally in a number of ways.

The first way of legally attacking this issue requires patience. This simply involves waiting for tips. Searching individual students and student property requires more than just a hunch. An anonymous tip is not quite enough, either. Administrators must have reasonable cause. The tip must come from a known informant and must include specific information. It also must be given straight from the informant to an administrator. If I or any of the other administrators received these tips, we would certainly take action given the situation. (Walsh, p. 374)

Lockers and desks are a good hiding place for the students to hide the drugs. As long as the policy is stated in the student code of conduct that the school may search this jointly held property, the lockers may be searched. However, it is generally looked down upon to complete these blanket searches. So, my administration would not take this type of action. We would only search a locker if sniffer dogs alerted on a particular locker. (Walsh, p. 384)

The first action I would likely take to battle the drug problem on my campus is to make use of sniffer dogs, assuming that they are available. Use of sniffer dogs to complete a general sweep of lockers and vehicles on school property is not considered a search. This is always permitted under any circumstances. The dog, however, must be considered reliable. If the dog is considered reliable and it alerts, the alert can be considered reasonable suspicion to conduct a search of the locker or vehicle. Use of sniffer dogs to search students at a distance has not yet been determined legal or illegal as of 2010. This would likely be okay since there is no targeting of any particular student and it does not involve any contact. Since it has not been determined, it is not something that I would encourage as an administrator. If my district has a police department, they would likely have a policy on this matter. Once an alert occurs, no district employees will conduct the search under my administration. It would be turned over to the local police department (unless the district police department has a policy on this matter). If the search is turned over to the local police department, the district cannot be held liable if nothing is found and a civil suit is filed. Also, school employees are usually not trained to conduct proper searches. It would be much safer to leave it in the hands of those who are trained to do so. (Walsh, p. 382)

It is also legal for some students to be drug tested at school. Students who are involved in extracurricular activities can legally be randomly drug tested throughout the school year. They can also all be drug tested at the beginning of the year. These tests can only be used for excluding them from those extracurricular activities. They may not be used for other school disciplinary procedures, shared with any faculty not involved in the extracurricular activity, or turned over to legal authorities. Waivers must be signed. This may be restricted in different districts. However, if I am an administrator in a district which allows this, I will certainly have it implemented. It is just good practice to use this. If an accident occurs due to drug use during these extracurricular activities, there may be liability issues for the district if the drug use is not known about. (Walsh, p. 382-383)

The third part of the scenario states:

News of the overdose travels quickly, and as you arrive at school the following morning you see a small group of students gathered outside, holding hands and praying. A teacher who also sees the group approaches and tells you that she thinks it would be appropriate for her to lead a school-wide prayer during a morning assembly.

While no state-mandated prayers can take place at school, student-led prayer is permitted if there are no attempts to make students listen to or participate in the prayer. This must be done individually and not as a school function. Voluntary prayer at school by students is completely legal according to the decision in Wallace v. Jaffree. (p. 273) Teachers are permitted to take part in the prayer in any role as long as it is not a school assembly. If the teacher wanted to take part in the private student prayer circle, she would be allowed to do so according to Doe v. Duncanville ISD (Duncanville II). The employee has a constitutional right to take part in prayer activities. (Walsh, p. 271)

The final legal issue involves disclosure of records.

Later that morning, you receive a call from a local television station asking if you can verify the hospitalized student’s name and address, and provide a picture and copies of her attendance records and grades so they can do a feature on how the use of “cheese” affects academic performance and school attendance.

In this particular instance, the administrator would not be allowed to provide the information. The school would need the parent to sign a disclosure statement for the release of the documents. As an administrator, even with the signature, I would not provide this information to the television station. I could, however, provide the records to the parents/guardians and make them aware of the request. I would rather not get involved. (The station could end up finding the identity of the student through other methods anyway.)

Records can be released if the student identity is removed or coded. The student must remain anonymous. But because the station is asking for a specific student's identity and records, this would be illegal. ( Walsh, p. 368)

Walsh, J., Kemerer, F. R., & Maniotis, L. (2010). The educator's guide to Texas school law (7th ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press.

What is the the difference between Substantive Due Process and Procedural Due Process?

     Procedural Due Process is the guarantee of basic rights: life, liberty, and property. If the rights do not fall under life, liberty, or property, then they are not protected by this particular process. This process does protect students from being expelled because a person's education is considered property.

      Substantive Due Process adds onto the Procedural Due Process. Substantive Due process predictably protects Substantive Rights. These Substantive Rights are basic human rights. These include life, liberty, and property. However, Substantive Rights also include things like health, education, freedom of expression, integrity, and due process itself. Critics of Substantive Due Process argue that these rights are not explicitly protected in the constitution. Both Procedural Due Process and Substantive Due Process were addressed by the Supreme Court based on the due process clauses in the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Procedural Due Process: What individual interests are protected? What process must government provide?. (n.d.). UMKC School of Law. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/proceduraldueprocess.html

Substantive Due Process. (n.d.). Stanford University. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from http://www.stanford.edu/group/psylawseminar/Substantive%20Due%20Process.htm

Due Process Rights of Public School Students. (n.d.). UMKC School of Law. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/dueprocesstudents.htm

Substantive Human Rights. (n.d.). Icelandic Human Rights Centre. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from www.humanrights.is/the-human-rightsproject/

humanrightscasesandmaterials/humanrightsconceptsideasandfora/substantivehumanrights/

Admission to Special Education

      The qualification process for admission to Special Education was revised in the IDEA 2004. In the 1990s, it was recognized that there were four major problems with the current system. These included the following:

1. “Lack of emphasis on prevention and early intervention;”
2. “Limited weight given to the importance of research-based instruction and intervention;”
3. Identity and eligibility did not correspond with the types of intervention that were given;
4. And the general and special education service delivery was lacking.

     This led to a series of meetings by special education leaders across the country. They discussed better options to admitting students into the special education program. To do this, they had to delve deeper into the problems that existed with the current model, the IQ Achievement Discrepancy Model.

Before IDEA 2004, the system used was called the IQ Achievement Discrepancy Model. This has many flaws that Reschly identified in 2003. He said that the IQ Achievement Discrepancy Model was:

1. Unreliable and unstable;
2. Invalid;
3. A way to undermine best practices;
4. and harmful.

      Academic benchmark exams and scores naturally vary with time. This is what makes this model unstable. It is invalid because the model is based on the assumption that achievement levels will rise and fall along with the IQ score. This is simply untrue. And there is no single definition of what a “normal” achievement score may be. This has led to various definitions and decisions among states. This would also lead to some states having more students with SLD (states which determined a smaller discrepancy was correct) and other states having fewer students with SLD (states which determined a larger discrepancy was correct). This process would undermine best practices because it did not line up with classroom practices. It did not take into account different remediation practices which were scientifically proven. Lastly, this model was truly harmful to many students like me. While many of the students with learning (academic and behavioral) disabilities do not show this discrepancy, their disabilities do truly exist and hamper their learning.

      Basically this model involved determining a discrepancy between intelligence and classroom achievement of each child. If this discrepancy was large enough (a benchmark determined by each state), the student was said to have an SLD, or Severe Learning Disability. The model itself was based on a very broad generalization of what learning disabilities are.

      The Response to Intervention Model was introduced in IDEA 2004. This model would be based on prevention of both academic and behavioral risk. This is important because the previous model (introduced in 1975) did not take into account behavioral risks. The idea of this new model was that it would save time, money, and effort in the admittance process. This is likely due to the fact that it weeds out some students from having to be admitted into the special education program (which costs in employee hours, testing materials, etc).

      The Response to Intervention Model is divided into three tiers. The first tier is referred to as “Primary Prevention.” All students fall under this tier. This requires teaching and treating all students in the same manner. All students are taught the rules and expectations, a positive environment is created through rules and procedures, focusing on a well-rounded curriculum and instruction, evaluation of instruction and curriculum, and school-wide assessments to gauge performance in the core academic courses. The purpose of this tier is to identify students who are at-risk (behaviorally and academically).

      What happens after these students are identified? They are moved into Tier Two. This tier is known as “Secondary Prevention,” or the monitoring stage. These are targeted services for students who are at-risk for entering the special education program and for those whom the universal instruction simply was not enough. The services provided in this tier are:

1. small group instruction;
2. additional support;
3. and remediation programs (like Title I).

     These three services are provided in addition to the curriculum. They are applied through one or both of the following methods.

1. Standard Protocol/Researcher Approach
2. Problem-Solving/School Practitioner Approach

     The Standard Protocol Approach is the approach in which all students who show a problem in a particular area will get the same proven method of remediation. The Problem-Solving Approach involves a creation of building-level or problem-solving teams to review student data. They select appropriate strategies and determine if strategies need to be modified, maintained, or aborted due to success. The end-goal of Tier Two is to return that student to Tier One. So what happens when the student cannot be returned to Tier One and does not succeed in Tier Two?

      Tier Three is the last step in this process. This one is very similar to Tier Two. It is simply more thorough and individualized involving monitoring more frequently. This is saved for students who continued struggling through the first two tiers. If a student progresses beyond Tier Two and Tier Three, only then is he or she likely to have a learning disability.

How are these two methods different?

The RTI, or Response to Intervention, remedies all of the problems with the IQ Achievement Discrepancy Model. RTI is stable and reliable because it is based on educators' opinions and individualized monitoring while not being based on academic scores, which vary from place to place.

RTI does not assume that achievement levels go along with IQ. In fact, it rejects this theory. It embraces the fact that all students are unique. All students will test differently in academia and the IQ levels will not necessarily follow these scores.

RTI relates special education admission to classroom practices. It takes into account the opinions of teachers and what is actually occurring in the classroom whereas previously testing was required to determine whether or not a student was suited for special education services. This does not take into account borderline students and behavioral issues.

The RTI method also removes the harmful aspect of identifying students who should be in a special education program. This new method allows students eligible for special education services to be identified quicker and allows them to begin receiving services even before being admitted into the program. This time saved can truly help any special education-eligible or any students at-risk for the special education program. It also helps identify special education-eligible students whereas the old method might not. m

How are these two methods alike?

Both set some loose standards while allowing the state and educators to determine what standards they will use to admit students into the special education program. The RTI method says that teachers will determine whether or not students are struggling through the tiers and which methods they will use to provide services. The IQ method simply involves testing over a number of years.

Both of these methods attempted to be based on scientific facts. The IQ test is thought to be a reliable way of determining a person's intelligence. And academic success was often based on achievement tests which were thought to be stable. Unfortunately, it was determined that scores vary with time. So any discrepancy value “standard” would need to be universalized and the tests would need to be universalized, yet the test would need to be changed regularly to keep up with improving teaching methods. Teaching methods themselves would also need to be evaluated and standardized. This takes away from the individualized educational needs of all students. The RTI method requires that any services provided be backed up by scientific evidence.

Martinez, R.S., Nellis, L.M., & Prendergast, K.A., (2006). Closing the achievement gap series, part II: Response to intervention (RTI) – Basic elements, practical application, and policy recommendations. Education Policy Brief, 4(8), Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, Indiana University. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 495749).

Administrators and Blogging

Teachers are taking the world of blogging by storm.  For some reason, administrators have been lagging behind.   Here are a few ways school administrators can use blogs.

• Principal-to-Teacher
• Post end-of-the-year to-do lists.
• Post all updates to one place to avoid confusion and mixed messages
  
• Rather than sending e-mails to teachers school-wide, post them all to one blog to keep mixed messages from circulating around the school.  Technical difficulties (e-mails not reaching everyone) can be avoided.  This is another way of avoiding lost messages.  These posts will always be available unless deleted by the principal him/herself.
• Principal-to-Self
• Reflection on action research plans
• Action research works well with an ongoing log consisting of developments, ideas, literature research, data, etc.  A great place to compile all of this information is either on a wiki or a blog. 
• Reflection on actions and growth
• Learning log
• In my classroom, I have my students keep learning logs for various things (each continent, each time period, war, each leader, etc.)  I've also found that keeping a learning log on a blog is a great way for teachers to reflect.  I'm sure that it's also a great way for an administrator to keep track of things he or she learns throughout the school year or career. 
• Principal-to-Stakeholder 
• Newsletter substitute

These are just the things that I have thought about.  I'm sure that there are several other ideas out there!  Please share any additions.

• Additions to the newsletters
• For instance, at the bottom of a segment in the newsletter, you can add "See more photos at our blog at http://ourblog.blogwebsite.com 
• Ongoing newsletter
• Keep accomplishments or important announcements on the blog throughout the month in addition to printing a monthly newsletter. 
• Principal-to-Parent
• Forms
• Announcements
• Accomplishments
• To-Do lists
• Include anything parents might need to know
• Principal-to-School Board
• Accomplishments 
• Requests

Through action research, paths are created. Through reflection, paths are directed and redirected.

Action Research

Action Research

Action research is much different than traditional academic research. It requires much more work, but in the end a more relevant, useful, and well-rounded product is created.

The inquiry is much more than just asking a question, though that's exactly where it must begin. The whole process is based around a question. According to Harris et al., there are eight steps to administrative inquiry:

• Set the foundation (literature review/research)
• Analyzing Data
• Develop deeper understanding
• Self-reflection
• Exploring patterns
• Determine a direction
• Taking action for improvement
• Sustaining improvement (maintenance) (p. 5-7)

According to Dana, administrator inquiry is a systematic way of questioning

and researching, then using the findings to make an improvement.

In essence, action research requires asking a question, finding a solution, and taking action to make a solution. Then, a maintenance plan must be created in order to maintain the improvements made.

The benefit to action research is that anyone can do it. Rather than some academic in an office writing about the teachers “in the trenches,” those teachers are getting their hands dirty and doing the research themselves. (Dana, p. 5) They find real problems that need to be solved and find realistic ways of solving them. They create maintenance plans that are realistic and that work with their particular school environments.

Fichman, Nancy Dana (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action Researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Harris, S., Edmonson, S., and Combs, J. (2010). Examining what we do to improve our schools: 8 steps to improve our schools. Eye on Education Press.

Teaching in Circles, Squares, and Triangles.

I'm a big believer in getting "back to the basics."  So I was meditating and looking at Bloom's Taxonomy, hoping that maybe a new idea would just pop into my head.  I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, this new idea could bring my students into a new, higher realm of thinking. 

Instead of coming up with my next million-dollar idea, I started thinking about all of the different learning theorists out there.  We know more about the brain today than we have ever known before.  (What do we not know more about today than we have ever known before?)  Yet, we can't seem to agree on the best way of teaching.  (Or learning, for that matter!) 

First, there was Skinner.  This is the guy who apparently enjoyed being around dogs and giving them food, and making the poor things drool when they heard a bell.  Sure, his work led us to some of the great discoveries in the way that the mind works with the body.  But what did he really contribute?  He published books and articles, and played with peoples' minds.

Then there was Bloom.  I'm quite sure he was a great guy, and he has given us the building blocks for the levels of learning.   As I eluded to before, I often get back to his taxonomy because it helps me quite a bit in the way that I design the units that I teach. 

Now we have Marzano.  If you haven't heard of him, Marzano is the go-to guy in most school districts.  He has published a number of books which sit on the shelves of every principal's book case. (If you don't believe me, just go ask!)  You'll hear about him in all of your school-run professional development sessions.

Now we are moving into the era of Wiggins & McTighe.  These guys want us to go from knowledge to understanding.  They focus on designing curriculum, performance assessments, and instruction. Their big idea was Backward Design.

Why do we have all of these theories?  Why can't someone simply use the scientific method to test the theories and see if they work?  Why can't we just pick one and stick to it?
The answers are quite simple.  These theories are untestable because of the wide variety of clients we're dealing with.  Testing these theories with students of all socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, countries of origin, standards of living, etc. would be an extremely overwhelming undertaking. And from what we now know, the results would be completely different for every subgroup in society.

The question should be why do we need a new theory every couple of decades?  Easy!  Our kids are changing.  The fundamentals of society remain the same.  But all of the changes to the auxiliary aspects of society change quicker and quicker as time goes on.  Children today are growing up in a word way more connected than the world I grew up in (and I'm a young teacher).  So what makes us think that these kids can go from a world of video-game playing and instant feedback into a world in which they have to sit in a room, read a book, and answer the questions at the end of the chapter?  Whether we believe they're changing for the better or for the worst, their ways of thinking are constantly changing.  And these theorists come up with what they believe is the best method of educating all of society.