The Legal Ledger

On May 15, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (ODEW) released a new resource for school districts on addressing school attendance, the Ohi

This week’s blog post examines cell phone usage and schools, including the new law requiring districts to adopt a policy on student cell phone use and legal issues related to cell phone use by board members.

The U.S.

We at OSBA get a lot of questions about board vacancies. This topic is tricky because often board vacancies happen unexpectedly or under less-than-ideal circumstances, and the timing requirements under RC 3313.11 can be awkward. The first step is to recognize when a vacancy occurs, so that the board can ensure that it acts within the applicable timelines. Board vacancies occur when a member resigns, moves out of the district, is removed from office, passes away or otherwise becomes ineligible to hold the office.

On April 15, 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued its final regulations

Under Ohio’s Open Meetings Act, boards and other public bodies are permitted to enter executive session to discuss specific topics spelled out in the law. In essence, executive session is a built-in exception to the general requirement that public bodies conduct their deliberations in public. This provision recognizes that the nature of certain topics makes privacy and discretion in deliberations paramount.

Access to student records

In today’s Legal Ledger Sidebar, Sara Clark and John Price discuss committees and subcommittees, which is a topic that comes up frequently for our members. Specifically, they discuss when committees are required to comply with the Open Meetings Act and what that means.

The last budget bill, House Bill 33, made significant changes to public education in Ohio. Over the last few months, OSBA’s legal division has been sharing information and resources developed by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) to implement those changes.