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Focusing exclusively on legal issues related to educational institutions, Annie centers her practice on considerations tied to compliance with Title IV Federal Student Aid and student funding requirements. She advises higher education clients on regulatory, consumer disclosure, accreditation, governance, risk management, nondiscrimination (including Title IX), and operations issues confronted in college and university environments. Annie regularly works closely with institutions responding to regulatory actions brought by the U.S. Department of Education, including Federal Student Aid program reviews, and she performs in-depth compliance audits, policy reviews and training.

On May 6, 2020, the U.S. Department of Education (“ED” or “the Department”) released the long-anticipated final Title IX regulations, which have a significant impact on schools all across the country—both K-12 and higher education institutions. This post identifies some of the key differences between requirements for K-12 and higher education institutions, as provided in the final regulations and related comments from the Department.

Interested in learning more? Join us December 3 and 4, 2020, for two half-day training sessions on Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault in K-12 Schools – Title IX Compliance and Response to New Regulations. Register here.

In light of ever-increasing use (and abuse) of social media, school district personnel must be mindful of the rights and responsibilities—of students and of the school districts themselves—that come with this technology.

Interested in learning more about these rights and responsibilities?  If you are a Husch Blackwell client or a member of the Council of the Great City Schools, join us next Tuesday, May 22, at 2:30 Eastern Daylight Time for a complimentary continuing legal education webinar.  Click here to register.

Schools and districts are being inundated with parental questions about how their schools will respond to inquiries or visits from immigration officials.  To best answer, schools and districts should plan ahead.  These are complicated legal, political and educational questions.  We highlight some key issues below.  For a fuller discussion of the legal issues in particular, check out the pamphlet that one of us wrote for the National School Boards Association.   Husch Blackwell clients and members of the Council of the Great City Schools may also want to participate in our March 23, 2017 webinar on the legal rights of immigrant students.

Safety pins, confederate flags, pantsuits, red baseball caps. Schools face challenges in balancing, on one hand, teachers’ rights to express themselves through what they wear against, on the other hand, potential school disruption in our post-election environment.

Are there times when public schools may restrict teachers from expressing themselves in the workplace through attire? Without a doubt.