Chalk and Gavel: An Education Law Podcast

Can a state prohibit transgender students from participating on teams that align with their gender identity? Does Title IX, a law that was passed in 1972 and says nothing about transgender individuals, protect those individuals in 2025? Are you ready to talk about our next Supreme Court saga? On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about another consequential education-related Supreme Court case! And it’s safe to say that we’ve had...

What happens when parents challenge the inclusion of books in the school library, and the school engages in its clearly stated procedures? How should we balance parents’ rights and students’ rights? How quickly can a school board reverse one of its own decisions? Well, this one wasn’t as quick as the reversal in the Mahmoud case (which was like 24 hours). This one was like a month, but still. Today, we’re covering a case that was r...

Under the First Amendment, can schools punish students for their lewd and indecent speech? What happens when a student delivers a speech full of sexual innuendos to a required assembly of 600 high school students? How should schools respond when a high school speech sounds more like a late-night comedy set? Welcome to our two-year anniversary episode!! We’re going to stay true to form and cover another landmark Supreme Court case f...

When are educators required to report suspicions of child abuse and neglect as mandatory reporters? Are unsubstantiated rumors enough to create a reasonable suspicion of child abuse? Ready to hear Chris get on his soapbox? Today, we're covering a fascinating case for all educators, especially teachers. This is the kind of thing that anyone in a school setting could easily encounter. This is a case of a school counselor who was ...

When can a school, consistent with the First Amendment, non-renew an employee for their speech? What happens when the High School Football coach doesn’t like his daughter’s middle school social studies curriculum? Are you ready for some... facts that have nothing to do with football? While we're great at talking about sports, this case has nothing to do with football and everything to do with free speech. Our case today is a recent...

When can schools expel a student for lying? What happens when a student’s initial lie snowballs into a tangled web of police reports, intimidation, and false accusations? We’ve talked about smoking in the girls’ room, but what about vaping in the girls’ room? In this episode, we bring TLO into the 21st century. TLO was about smoking in the girls' room, but what happens when a student is accused of vaping in the girls' room? And the...

Can a state require that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom? What does the Establishment Clause mean these days with the rise of the Free Exercise Clause and the impact of Kennedy v. Bremerton? Do you ever get deja vu? We do, because we swear we've already had this conversation. Today, we're discussing a recent case challenging Louisiana's requirement that every classroom display a prominent copy of the Ten Commandme...

We've got a special episode for you to celebrate our 50th episode! We're joined by none other than Mary Beth Tinker, one of the plaintiffs in the famous 1969 Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. We've talked about Tinker so many times on this show; this is the case that set the standard for students’ free speech rights in schools. And to help us explore this case, who better th...

Can schools control what students say at student protests? When is a student walkout a school-sponsored event? What’s the first rule about protesting against gun violence in schools? Apparently, the first rule of protesting gun violence is “don’t talk about gun violence.” At least according to the Shawnee Mission School District. Today’s case is another First Amendment student speech case. We’re heading to Kansas to look at what ha...

Jamie and Chris return for the third episode on the Mahmoud v. Taylor case! This time, we break down the recent Supreme Court Decision that came out at the end of the term. It was an interesting decision made by the Court's conservative majority, adding another (ambiguous) layer to decades of parental rights and school curriculum case law. We also discuss the AJT v. Osseo Supreme Court decision that eliminates the higher bar th...

What does the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, say about the practice of peer grading? When does something become an “educational record” protected under FERPA? Do you think the people who wrote FERPA knew we were going to call it 'FERPA'? Couldn’t they have come up with a better acronym? This is our first FERPA episode! This is the law that’s designed to protect the privacy of student records. So, what ...

Can the U.S. Department of Education require schools to stop all DEI programs and activities? What do they actually mean when they say “DEI?” Are you ready to go three rounds on the injunction junction? We’ve got a three-fer for you today. Three cases for the price of none! We’re covering how three courts are dealing with the Trump Administration’s education directives to curtail DEI programs and initiatives in schools. In our bell...

When can a school dismiss a teacher for good or just cause? What happens when a teacher’s iPhone with some, let's say, risque pictures, automatically syncs with his district-issued iPad? What could possibly go wrong? We've got another interesting case here today! This one involves a teacher who took some “naughty” pictures on his personal iPhone while on vacation, which later happened to be synced to a school-issued device ...

Is a charter school a public school? Does the Free Exercise Clause require taxpayers to fund charter schools that teach religion as truth? Is a charter school just a private organization with a state contract, or is it a state actor or even a governmental entity? Is Oklahoma on the brink of establishing the country’s first religious public school? Today, we’re tackling the oral arguments from another consequential Supreme Court cas...

Does it burden a family’s religion to have their child exposed to views with which they disagree? Where is the line between exposure and coercion? Who gets to draw that line? Should public schools be a place where students encounter and acknowledge a variety of viewpoints, even if they don’t agree with them? Or should parents have the power to opt their kids out of anything that might conflict with their religious views? Can a dive...

   Sheet1Sheet2When can educators use materials created by someone else? What happens when a teacher creates a learning activity packet for her class that includes 11 pages copied straight from a copyrighted work? What do Chris and Jamie know about cake decorating? Turns out, not much (except what we've learned from The Great British Baking Show and Nailed It!). In this episode, we’re going back to the 70s and 80s for our first...

What happens when a student with a disability graduates high school with a 3.4 GPA but is unable to read? When does an Individualized Education Program provide a Free and Appropriate Education as required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act? Are you ready for another round of special education acronym bingo? We were ready AF. This is the case of William A. v. Clarksville-Montgomery County School System, a case inv...

When can schools punish students for the unauthorized use of AI? Is the use of AI sufficiently covered by schools’ existing academic integrity policies? Today, we’re covering a very recent case from November of 2024. Imagine a student using an AI chatbot to help them with their homework. It's almost inconceivable, right? Sure, of course. This is Harris v. Adams, a case involving a student who was punished for using AI to comple...

When are public high schools required to officially recognize student groups? Can a school stop students from forming a Gay-Straight Alliance? In today's episode, we’re covering a 2003 case that allows us to lay out lots of the characteristics and guidelines of the 1984 Equal Access Act. This case concerns a proposed Gay-Straight Alliance club that was denied the opportunity to operate like the other non-curricular clubs at the...