In August, the US Department of Education (USDOE) rescinded a 2015 Dear Colleague letter that described how state and local education agencies could meet their obligations to serve children who are English learners.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 remains in place and continues to apply to schools’ responsibilities for serving English learners and their families. USDOE also left in place a 2015 guidance document they jointly issued with the US Department of…
We are just a few weeks away from the November 4, 2025, election. As ballots are finalized and campaigns heat up, questions often arise about what school districts can and can’t do when it comes to different campaign activities. Ohio law, specifically …
Here in OSBA's legal division, we've been getting lots of questions about filling school board vacancies. In particular, we have been hearing from members who anticipate having vacancies in January because not enough candidates are running to fill the available seats. In this week’s Legal Ledger Sidebar, we talk about what boards need to know about filling those vacancies.
As you’ll hear in the video, we talk about OSBA’s board…
September is attendance awareness month in Ohio. In honor of the month, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (ODEW) has issued new resources to support boards of education in their work to encourage regular school attendance.
As OSBA’s legal division discussed in the Legal Ledger Sidebar earlier this summer, the Ohio biennial budget bill, House Bill 96, included several changes to state laws on attendance. On Sept. 3, in…
Each year, on Sept. 17, every district that receives federal funds is required…
It’s an odd-numbered year, which means that school board positions will be on ballots across the state this November. As we head toward fall, OSBA is fielding questions from both first-time and experienced candidates. From organizing a campaign to record keeping and filing required reports, the legal division works to connect board candidates with available resources to help them run successfully. In this week’s Legal Ledger Sidebar, Scott Gerfen sits down with John Price and Jennie Hardin to talk about some basics for board candidates.
School board candidates are…
While Ohio’s education community (and therefore we at the Legal Ledger) have been focused on dissecting the many school-related provisions of the budget bill, there have been some other significant updates in the past few weeks our readers should be aware of. Both federal and state actors have taken action that will affect schools and school leaders and may require some changes to ongoing practices.
Federal funds released…
As noted in previous Legal Ledger posts, House Bill (HB) 96, Ohio’s budget bill, includes several important changes for Ohio school districts. This week’s post focuses on the new cybersecurity requirements, which will appear as …
For the past couple weeks here on the Legal Ledger, we’ve spent some time exploring House Bill (HB) 96, Ohio’s budget bill, which was passed earlier this month. As we’ve discussed in previous posts, the bill contains many substantive changes for school districts. In this week’s Legal Ledger, we’re going to discuss some provisions that affect schools related to scholarships for students with disabilities.
HB 96 made adjustments…
After several weeks of discussing new decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States, the focus of the Legal Ledger blog has turned to Ohio’s budget bill – HB 96 (see Legal Ledger Sidebar — July 7/16/2025). The bill was signed into law, with vetoes, by Gov. Mike DeWine on June 30. There has been a lot of discussion of…
