David Ruehs

ED 631 Educational Law and Organizational Structure of Education

November 24, 2019
Week 6 Handbook Assignment

I chose to review the handbook for the high school that I am currently an administrator.

We have gone through a handbook update over the last year, so this assignment timing is very

appropriate for me to read it again. The three handbook policies that I chose to review include

injury or illness, out of school conduct, and the behavior management philosophy.

Language that is included in the injury and illness portion of the handbook states, “The

Board, however, is not responsible for the treatment of children; the responsibility of the school

is to see that an ill or injured child receives prompt, competent attention and is turned over to the

care of the parents or qualified medical personnel as quickly as possible.” In McGilvra v. Seattle

School District No. 1, it was determined that schools cannot perform medical procedures or

diagnose their students of medical ailments. The case goes on to speak more to the idea that

schools may not overreach their power than what is granted by statute, but at surface value, our

policy matches that of the outcome of McGilvra.

I found the Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District to be a very interesting case. On

one hand, there is a student who is saying very negative things about teachers, administrators,

and his school district on the internet. However, he is using his own time at home on his own

computer, so there is no resource connection to the school. There was no evidence of a

substantial disturbance at the school and he was suspended for ten days, which negatively

effected his grades because of the school’s attendance policy. The Supreme Court ruled in the

student’s favor for multiple reasons, as mentioned before, and because, “Disliking or being upset

by the content of a student’s speech is not an acceptable justification for limiting student speech
under Tinker.” Our handbook policy makes an attempt to curtail this behavior, but more of

harassing communications. It reads as, “Out-of-School Conduct: Anything which can be defined

as harassment against a teacher by any current student outside of school or school hours falls

under the jurisdiction and will be dealt with by school authorities.” While still considering the

ruling on the Beussink v. Woodland case, the act of personal attacks and harassment, even though

students may say or type inappropriate things to teachers in their free time on their own devices,

harassment is not tolerated and would be considered to be detrimental to the school environment.

The statement about behavior management in the handbook reads as, “BHS believes all

students are responsible for their own actions and must be taught to respect the rights of others.

Students have a right to learn and teachers have a right to teach in a safe environment. No

students have a right to disrupt the school environment, especially if they are preventing other

students from learning or are threatening the safety and rights of others.” This language closely

reflects that in Tinker v. Des Moines and that “students do not shed their constitutional rights…

at the schoolhouse gate.” Students who violate the code of conduct may need to be removed

from the environment and worked with to build skills to mitigate continued behavior in the

future because the remainder of the students in those classrooms still have their rights to learn. If

the behavior is not a disruption, then Tinker has more to say about it, but it would not apply to

this part of the assignment.

The three handbook policies that I chose to review include injury or illness, out of school

conduct, and the behavior management philosophy. The entire handbook is based on policies

that have been written by the local school board, and those are based on case law and statutes.

Some of those cases that our polices are based on include McGilvra v. Seattle School District

No. 1, Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District, and Tinker v. Des Moines.