The Legal Ledger

It’s an election year for school boards of education. The last day to file a nominating petition as a board of education candidate for the November general election was August 9. Write-in candidates have until August 28 to …

House Bill (HB) 33, Ohio’s budget bill, contains several provisions related to reading instruction and screening students with dyslexia. The changes significantly alter districts’ obligations to students in the area of reading instruction.

Third grade…

This week, the Legal Ledger is focusing on some student wellness issues in the 2024-25 Budget Bill, Ohio Am. Sub. House Bill 33 (HB 33). 

First, the General Assembly enacted Ohio Revised Code (RC 3301.91) which will require the Ohio Department of Education/Department of…

Under current law, school bus drivers and licensed educators in Ohio submit their fingerprints to the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI) as part of a background check that is a condition of their initial employment or licensure. In addition to submitting to these background checks, these employees are also enrolled in a system called the Retained Applicant Fingerprint Database (RAPBACK). This system stores the fingerprints captured as part of the background check…

As we have written in the Legal Ledger in recent weeks, Ohio’s Budget Bill HB 33 was signed by Gov. DeWine on July 3. This week, we will take a look at changes to a program that will have  significant implications for school districts: the expansion of the EdChoice Scholarship program into a universal school voucher program.

EdChoice scholarships—or vouchers—can be used by students to attend nonpublic schools of their…

As the Legal Ledger noted in last week’s post, Am. Sub. House Bill 33 (HB 33), the biennial budget bill for fiscal years 2024-25, was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine on July 3. There are numerous provisions in the bill that will affect Ohio…

On July 3, Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law the state’s operating budget, Am. Sub. House Bill (H.B.) 33.  …

On Thursday, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Groff v. Dejoy, 600 U.S. ___ (2023), that marks a notable shift in how courts will analyze religious discrimination claims, requiring employers to show that religious accommodations would constitute a “substantial burden in the overall context of [their] business” in order to deny them. The case involved an…

Earlier this week, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released a new webpage to assist school districts to meet new health curriculum requirements in Ohio Revised Code (RC) 3313.60, enacted in Senate Bill (SB) 288.  

The SB 288 amendments…

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division jointly released two fact sheets: …