Principals Avoiding Lawsuits: How Teachers Can Be Partners in Practicing Preventive Law

This book gives principals the tools they need to avoid lawsuits by teaching their staff the information they need to practice preventive law. Lawsuits often begin when teachers unintentionally violate students’ rights such as searching a student’s cell phone without reasonable suspicion or failing to follow a student’s Individualized Education Program. These violations do not occur because teachers intend to break the law. They occurred because the vast majority of teachers are not required to learn about the rights and responsibilities of students and teachers in their teacher preparation programs. As a result, most teachers get their legal information from the “law school” of the teachers’ lounge—that is, from colleagues who are similarly uninformed and misinformed. Instead, what teachers want and need is an in-service program that will provide them with a basic understanding of school law. But most busy principals don’t have the time, knowledge and resources to provide such a program for their staff. This book will meet this critical, unmet need. It provides principals with the resources and lesson plans they need to incorporate school law into their professional development program. As a result, their teachers will get their information about school law from a reliable source – not from the rumors, fears and myths of the teachers’ lounge. By empowering their teachers with legal knowledge, principals and teachers will avoid lawsuits by becoming partners in the practice of preventive law.