This study sought to determine Virginia Public School principals' knowledge of school law as it related to the type, length/quantity, and recency of law preparation they received. Other variables measured included how their level of knowledge was associated with their length of administrative experience and with their description of the school community in which they worked.An on-line survey instrument was designed to collect demographic and professional information and to test knowledge of court cases and federal and state statutes. Three hundred and twelve principals completed the survey, representing all grade levels and all regions in the State of Virginia. The principals' knowledge of school law was measured by a forty item true-false test that addressed four key areas of school law selected by a panel of experts: student issues, teacher/administrator issues, tort liability, and church/state relations.The data were analyzed using analysis of variance and post hoc tests. The findings of this study indicated a significant difference of the means, ά =.05, between the principals' knowledge of school law in the category of tort liability and the recency of legal preparation. Principals who received their legal preparation over 10 years ago scored significantly lower on the tort section of the test than those who received their legal preparation only 5-10 years ago. Findings also indicated that principals across all categories of school law displayed only a fair knowledge of school law, earning a mean score of 29.359 out of 40 or 73.3%. The principals' weakest area of school law was in the category of church/state relations. These findings would provide valuable information for the design of principal preparation programs. They would also encourage state educational policymakers and local school divisions to strengthen the professional development of principals on legal matters. / Ed. D.

A COMPARISON OF LEGAL LITERACY AMONG TEACHER SUBGROUPS By Candace Partridge Mirabile, Ph. D. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2013 Charol Shakeshaft, Ph.D., Professor, Educational Leadership, School of Education This study determined the level of legal literacy among classroom teachers in a suburban metropolitan division in Virginia. I have focused on aspects of the law that relate to student safety and student rights, and my operational definition of legal literacy is the understanding of these laws. The results from 239 respondents indicated that teachers in this division are not knowledgeable of essential legal content specific to student/teacher interactions. The mean percent of correct answers hovered at the 50% mark on a survey of 20 true/false questions related to landmark cases, important legislation, and Virginia law. I was unable to trace legal literacy to a particular demographic, and I concluded that more than half of the respondents had received no training in legal issues. I propose that Virginia’s licensure requirements be upgraded to include competence in legal literacy because knowledge of law is among the standards of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, 2008). Based on comments from respondents to my survey, teachers are interested in learning more about education law.

School officials are constantly challenged to perform a myriad of duties in an extremely complex and demanding job with numerous responsibilities. They are expected to work with a variety of students, faculty and parents under difficult circumstances. "Faced with multiple needs, with the necessity of making fast decisions in an atmosphere of fragmented time, administrators are liable for everything they do." School administrators need to understand the rights guaranteed to students by the Fourth Amendment and how it applies to the school setting. This document will provide an overview of student search and seizure in kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12) public schools in a non-traditional dissertation (non-experimental design) format by providing an historical review of the relevant case law. Specifically, based upon legal research, it will review relevant Supreme Court cases, post-New Jersey v. T.L.O. federal, Pennsylvania and other state court cases related to search and seizure in K-12 public schools. The conclusion and summary will provide answers to the guiding questions, provide a conceptual model, outline what is a reasonable search, and provide a short practical school law exercise to test the reader's understanding of search and seizure in public schools. / Ed. D.

The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge base of Virginia's public secondary school counselors in specific areas of school law that are directly related to the issues they encounter within their job responsibilities. A sample size of 416 was selected from a list of 1,892 Virginia public secondary school counselors. These 416 school counselors were sent a secure, online assessment that focused on specific school law areas related to their job responsibilities. To obtain the 66.8% response rate, four sets of emails were sent out once a week for a total of four weeks reminding school counselors to respond. Phone calls also were made attempting to gather responses. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data from the assessment. Then one-way analysis of variances, independent t-tests, and Pearson correlations were used, when appropriate, to determine the relationship between the independent variables and the counselors' knowledge of school law. The mean score correct on the assessment was 29.42/40 (74%). A significantly positive statistical relationship was found at the .05 level with school law knowledge and years of experience. It was discovered that there was a statistically significant difference between counselors' knowledge of school law and having been issued a subpoena, appearing as a witness or defendant in a court of law, and having earned a teaching certificate. The study also surveyed the 16 university/college school counseling preparation programs in Virginia in order to assess if and how students were being taught school law. Of the 11 programs that responded, the survey revealed that only one school, Norfolk State University, offers a class specifically on school law. Seven of the 11 programs (64%) did report covering school law as part of other courses such as legal and ethical issues in counseling. The goal for this study was to identify gaps in school counselors' understanding of school law. This identification could assist principals, school systems, and graduate school counseling programs in developing additional training opportunities for counselors. By doing this, the very real threat and fear of being held liable in court could be reduced. / Ed. D.

Abbeville v. the State of South Carolina (2005) is the latest lawsuit in a long line of cases addressing school finance issues that originated with Brown v. the Board of Education (1954), Serrano v. Priest (1971), and the San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriquez (1973). Unlike many of the other school finance cases that have been adjudicated, Abbeville has not been the subject of much academic scrutiny. This case study documented Abbeville's origins in an effort to begin the process of academic examination and understanding. To document the inception of this case, five research questions were developed to guide the efforts. These five research questions were: 1) What political and economic conditions were present in South Carolina in the early 1990s that led to the decision to file the lawsuit?; 2) How were the eight lead school districts selected to be a part of the plaintiffs' case?; 3) What legal arguments did both the plaintiffs and defendants use in Abbeville?; 4) Why did the state choose to contest the lawsuit?; and 5) What was the 2005 ruling in the Abbeville case and how did people closely associated with the case react to the decision? The data used to answer these research questions included analysis of primary documents and eighteen qualitative interviews. The primary documents included the state constitution, current legislation in South Carolina affecting public education, previous school finance oriented court cases in South Carolina, and student achievement data. The eighteen participants in this study all shared a high degree of familiarity with Abbeville. Eleven were directly involved in the case (testified, heard and/or made legal arguments), four were deposed, and the remaining three followed the case closely. The credibility of this study increased through the use of triangulation, or the use of multiple data sources related to an issue of uncertainty, which produced the conclusions to the study found at the end of this document. As a result of the data collected, conclusions related to Abbeville are presented along with a discussion on the implications of this study. There are also suggestions for future studies. / Ph. D.

Purpose and questions: The Swedish School Law states that education in preschools and schools shall rest on a scientific base. The aim of this study is to examine to what extent and in what ways that preschool teachers are acquiring and getting information about research. It also aims to investigate the possibilities and the problems that may arise due to the requirement that education in preschools should have a scientific base. In what extent does preschool teachers believe that scientific basis and new research has significance for their work? How does preschool teachers get information about research and in what extent? What are the opportunities and problems that preschool teacher faces when it comes to new research? Theory: The theory that are used is Illeris learning theory. Also the postmodern view of the world, with its perspective on knowledge and the reflexive term is used. Method: The research is done with a quantitative method, web survey. The analysis is done with more of a mix between quantitative and qualitative analysis method. The response rate is 30,5 % for the survey, which is 25 preschool teachers. Conclusion: The preschool teachers in this study states that they comes in contact with research mainly by seeking it out themselves. They overall states that it's interesting to read these texts and they understand them. Furthermore the majority of the teachers states that research has relevance to their professional practice and that the research they have read has changed their preschool. The majority of the teachers also states that it's important that the preschool education is resting on a scientific base. Generally the preschool teachers in this study have the skills and motivation they need to read, get information and knowledge through research and to use the acquired knowledge in their preschools. The biggest problem for them to use more research is lack of time.

The following thesis investigates differences and similarities in the social aspect of teachers’ professional work, as described through teachers’ rights and responsibilities regulated in national school law of the social interaction teacher-student in Finland and Sweden. This thesis is written as a pilot-study in the Swedish Research Council project concerning teacher autonomy in Sweden, England, Finland and Germany. Teacher autonomy is seen as a multidimensional concept in recent research made, and in an analytical matrix developed by Wermke and Salokangas (2016) teacher autonomy can be analyzed on different levels and in different domains of teachers’ professional work. This thesis connects to the social domain in the analytical matrix, which concerns disciplinary policies in the social interaction between teacher and students and thus explores the social part (or dimension) of teacher autonomy. The methods adopted in this thesis are content analysis and comparative method where documents on a national level (i.e. school law) and local level (i.e. rules of conduct) from Finland and Sweden are analyzed. Three terms (i.e. rights, responsibility and offensive actions) guide the analysis together with three analytical questions drawing on Ingersoll’s (2003) research where decisions concerning the social aspect of schooling was proven to be the most important area of teachers’ decision-making power. The results of the investigation indicate that there are both similarities and differences in how the social aspect of teachers’ work is described on national and local level in Finland and Sweden. On national level for example, both Finnish and Swedish teachers can take disciplinary measures to maintain a safe study- and classroom environment, although it is more regulated in the Finnish school law. The investigation also shows that there is a clearer connection between the national level and the local level in Finland, a connection which cannot be perceived in the Swedish case. Lastly, the possibility of reporting teachers divides the two countries apart where in Sweden this is described in the school law, which is not expressed in the Finnish school law.

The major purpose of this study was to determine how no pass, no play has impacted the perceptions of academic player eligibility as perceived by high school coaches in Educational Service Center, Region 20, Texas. Variables such as coach characteristics, school characteristics, and community characteristics were researched. In addition, the study examined the influence gender and ethnicity of the coach had on their perceptions of no pass, no play. The study focused on the perceptions of coaches to no pass, no play relating to (1) student motivation, (2) instructional issues, (3) ethnicity specific variables, (4) student suspension variables. The relationship between poverty status in the district, annual household income, the type of sport, and demographic variables such as the gender, experience level, and ethnicity of the coach were also examined. Respondents’ answers were dependent upon a number of variables. The gender of the coach was a variable that reappeared as significant throughout the study. The ethnicity of the coach and minority population in the school also showed to be significant variables. Lastly, the type of sport, poverty status in the district, percentage of economically disadvantaged students on the campus, the annual dropout rate, and annual household income were also variables that significantly impacted the study. Findings of the study included: 1. Female coaches were four times more likely than male coaches to believe that no pass, no play was an effective motivational tool. 2. Female coaches were 87% more likely to feel that allowing students to practice while they are ineligible to participate motivated students to stay in school. 3. As the annual household income in the district increased, so did the likelihood that the coach perceived students to feel threatened by no pass, no play, resulting in increased study time by the students. 4. The type of sport did not have an impact on coaches’ perceptions that in order to influence student eligibility, parents and student-athletes challenge failing grades assigned by teachers. 5. As the number of ineligible students increased, the likelihood of an athlete making better grades following suspension decreased.

This study investigated legal implications of differential disciplinary treatment of special education and non-special education students in K-12 public schools. It focused on interpreting and applying federal and state education legislation by courts and how various judicial decisions affect discipline practices in public school systems, asking if preferential treatment was afforded to students with disabilities through implementation and interpretation of educational legislation.The historical myriad of complex legislation passed before and after inception of Public Law 94-142 in 1975 was studied, exploring relationships between school discipline of children who do and do not receive special education services. Research included review of pertinent books, journal articles, published and unpublished papers, and personal communications with experts in education and law. It identified appellate court cases dealing with school discipline and compared rulings. Law and educ ation authorities were interviewed. Surveys were developed and administered to discern teachers' understanding of educational legislation. It attempted to formulate a theory addressing consistencies and inconsistencies associated with public school discipline, along with reinforcement of that treatment by the United States court system, offering implications and recommendations for practice and for further research. Emphasizing data collection from primary and secondary documents, this study took a historical perspective.Conclusions indicate that school compliance is directly tied to financial mandates and that school-based personnel have little discretionary power disciplining students with disabilities. School officials are caught between attempts to keep schools safe and complying with federal and state mandates to avoid forfeiting allocated funds. Many teachers feel unsafe at schools attributing that feeling to inability to control students' classroom behavior. Inabilities stem fr om inequities in consequences for discipline infractions by students with and without disabilities, inequities that have court precedents.Implications are that, based on the number of cases filed on behalf of students without disabilities, parents are seeking similar rights for their children as those of children with disabilities. Numbers indicate cases involving students with disabilities are resolved at lower levels of due process. Inequities are advocated by issuing various mandates and funding/compliance guidelines serving to strip local school districts of their ability to maintain and self-regulate schools.

The current economic conditions in the United States have contributed to budgetary cuts to public education at both the federal and state levels. This attention to educational funding and political decisions regarding spending are linked to beliefs about what is valued in education and what proper policy solutions exist. Yet, contemporary actions and issues do not exist in isolation. These economic difficulties are situated in a specific context, history, and have been shaped by political ideologies. This dissertation is directly focused on critically examining the history and context of school finance policy. School finance policy has been an important political issue for over 40 years, beginning with the San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez case (Koski & Levin, 2000). This case was first filed in 1968 and serves as the unit of analysis for this study. While much of the body of work regarding school finance is framed according to traditional economic methods and beliefs, this study is a historic narrative that utilizes critical policy analysis to examine educational funding. Though Rodriguez was a case filed by Mexican American parents on behalf of students in the Edgewood school district, which served a student population that was over 90% Latino, Mexican Americans and the voices of Mexican Americans were glaringly absent from the arguments made in court. This absence of race marks a need for critical policy analysis and work that calls attention to this silent area of political discourse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the inclusion and exclusion of race in the Rodriguez case to find out what is missing from the dominant narratives of school finance and begin to understand how current policies continue to ignore race. Historic methods, guided by a Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) framework, are employed to analyze archival records, newspaper articles, legal documents, and oral histories. Narratives reveal themes of the social context that lead to legal action, the language used in the courts cases, and the lasting implications for continued understandings of school finance policy. / text