The Legal Ledger

Planning for the year ahead

Welcome to 2022! As you update your calendars for a new year, please remember that OSBA…

January brings new year’s resolutions, bowl games and (for school districts) organizational meetings. Everyone loves a checklist, so here it is: your handy-dandy organizational meeting checklist!

Timing:

_____ City, local, and exempted village boards of education must meet during the first fifteen days of January.

_____ Joint vocational boards of education and educational service center governing boards must meet in January.

Presiding officer:

_____ If the members of the former board selected a president pro tempore for…

The Ohio General Assembly introduced SB 229…

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) has made a new transportation compliance monitoring system available on its website. The system was created in connection with newly enacted provisions of law contained in House Bill 101, the biennial budget bill. Ohio Revised Code (RC)…

As new school board members prepare to start their term, inevitably the question arises as to when/if it is permissible for former board members to be employed by the district they served. Unlike more familiar situations which involve retired public employees seeking to be re-employed, board members are elected public officials. Public employee retirement systems, such as STRS and SERS, have rules that often make retired employees serve a “…

There have been a couple of recent releases of guidance that affect school districts in Ohio. 

First, the Ohio Department of Health released updated school quarantine guidance. The reason for this most recent guidance is that ODH has determined out-of-school quarantining has the unintended consequence of reducing in-school learning and can place an added strain on parents, schools, and local health departments. The new options are aimed at supporting in-school learning…

The 2021 OSBA Capital Conference is just a few short weeks away! After months of planning and preparation, OSBA’s staff is eager to welcome everyone in person to the Capital Conference at the Greater Columbus Convention Center from Nov. 7 - 9. If you haven’t registered yet, you can…

Voluntary abandonment is an interesting term that sometimes comes up in relation to workers’ compensation claims. The term usually came up when an employer offered, in good faith, an injured employee suitable alternative employment. If the employee accepted this offer, he/she could more quickly return to work and the employer could save on the claim. However, in many situations the employee would refuse the offer for alternative employment, resulting in the employee not returning to work and the underlying claim…

It’s an election year for school boards of education. Nominating petitions were due Aug. 4 and write-candidates were required to file declarations of their intent to be a…

The U.S. Department of Education's (US DOE) Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services recently released a Question & Answer titled the…