School Law

The United States Supreme Court, again passed on the opportunity to clarify transgender students’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX.  

As Illinois descends into the depths of winter, the weather turns ever-colder and messy. Despite the organizational issues, students in kindergarten through fifth grade must receive supervised, unstructured, child-directed play – also known as recess.

We have received a number of inquiries regarding the proposed policy changes required by PA 103-100, which limits the abilities of libraries, including school libraries, to ban, limit, or remove books based on partisan or doctrinal grounds.  While the statute became effective on January 1, 2024, it is important to note that there are also longstanding constitutional considerations when schools s

Effective January 1, 2024, Public Act 103-0395 modified Section 24-2 of the School Code and added educational support personnel employees to the long-existing law that previously applied only to teachers for the purposes of legal or special holidays.  Section 24-2 now relevantly states, “No deduction shall be made from the time or compensation of a school employee, including an educational support personnel employee, on

The long-awaited Title IX Sexual Harassment rules and Athletic Participation rules are finally set to be released in March 2024.

As of August 11, 2023, the prior teacher resignation law that could impact teachers' licensure for resigning during the term received updates to gain some additional teeth as Districts face staffing shortages. While we see most resignations where this process comes into play at the beginning of the school year, it applies throughout the school year.

In Groves vs.

In Scanlon v. Ignite, Org., the 1^st District Appellate Court (Chicago) ruled that the plain language of the Illinois Personnel Records Review Act provides that an employee has a right to review of his or her personnel file, but not to a copy of that file.

In July 2022, the federal Department of Education issued a series of five guidance documents from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Office for Special Education Programs (OSEP) related to discipline and behavior of students with disabilities.  School admini

During the 2022 legislative session, the Illinois General Assembly passed two laws specifically relating to leave available to school employees.